hold me 'till it sleeps
by thatiranianphantom
Summary: It starts with a bottle of cough syrup, and the flatline of a heart monitor Or: Sadie returns to form and writes multichapter angst she may never finish.
1. vivre

_She's in the kitchen at the crack of dawn_ _  
Bacons on, coffees strong  
Kids running wild, taking off their clothes  
If she's a nervous wreck, well it never shows_

 _The last to go to bed, she'll be the first one up_ _  
And I thought I was tough_

It starts with a bottle of cough syrup.

Did you know they expire?

Alexander didn't. He bought it when William was sick some years ago. Completely forgot about it, until it turned up again, nearly empty.

William never used it, they were healthy family, and none really fell sick that often.

(wow, does that seem ironic to say considering the proceeding year and...Philip).

That had happened mere months ago.

It was a car accident. Drunk driver. Not Philip, god no. The other one, a George Eacker.

He goes to jail, but it doesn't matter.

Philip is on life support, Alex and Eliza are barely speaking after the Maria Reynolds scandal.

(He's sorry, he's so sorry, he's been spending the last year trying to make up for it, sleeping in the study and taking the barest scraps of acknowledgement Eliza threw his way.)

They sit by his bedside, while the doctor tells them that his body is alive but he will never come back. He'll never smile, walk, talk, not ever again.

They stand by while Eliza lifts her hand to turn off their firstborn's life support. She can't complete it, though, her hand shakes violently with sobs. He lays his hand over hers, fitting her against him, and she doesn't object. They press the buttons together, watch the line of their son's heart slowly flatten. At the long, whining beep, Eliza screams in anguish and throws herself into Alex's arms. He clutches at his wife as she clutches at him and they sob together.

( _he had leant Philip his car)_

That was the beginning of everything.

That and the damn bottle of cough syrup.

After that night, he sleeps in their bed. He never goes back to the office.

Angelica breaks.

And the world keeps turning.

Fast forward a few months. The family is still knitting themselves back together. They're not recovered, he hates that word, they'll never be recovered.

But they're surviving.

Eliza develops a cough as the weather turns, one that shakes her body and gets worse and worse.

He makes her some slightly burned soup and she laughs, asking him how he managed to burn soup and pressing a kiss to his lips.

That laugh and that kiss get him through the next few days.

And three days later, he finds that bottle of cough syrup, nearly empty.

He finally manages to force Eliza to the doctor one day, after literally holding her up when a coughing fit nearly sent her to the floor.

"Love, we are going to the doctor." he tells her.

"I'm _fine_ ," she insists. "It's just a cough, and I have children to care for."

(it's not a lie. The children have been particularly needy recently, given everything.)

But while she may have children to care for, he has _her_ to care for.

"Eliza," he cajoles, lifting her chin to look at him. "You've had this cough for weeks, you can barely breathe, you're tired, what is the harm in getting it checked out?"

It's a personal victory when she nods. He books the appointment before she can change her mind.

On the day of, they see the doctor quickly (perks of being a senator) and he examines Eliza, looking into her mouth and listening to her rattling breath.

Alexander holds her hand for the majority of it, until she frees her hand to gesticulate something about coughing up blood ( _one time_ she stresses). She's not really looking at the doctor but Alex is, and he sees the man's brow furrow when he takes his wife's fingers into his gloved hands.

His heart beats a little quicker, as the doctor examines the tips of his wife's fingers, but he can't possibly imagine what may be wrong with _fingers_.

"Your fingertips are a bit swollen," the doctor notes. "That does fit the theme of chest issues."

He turns to his desk and scribbles an order on a prescription pad.

"Mrs. Hamilton, I am sending you to get a chest x-ray at the local hospital. If you go right there, I'm sure they can squeeze you in today."

"A chest x-ray?" Eliza groans. "Is that really necessary?"

The doctor smiles reassuringly. "It's painless. And it's just a precaution."

"She has no problem with pain, doc," Alex smiles. "Seven kids and married to me."

She heaves a small laugh, and relents.

 _And now I'm still learning the lesson_ _  
To awake when I hear the call  
And if you ask me why I am still running  
I'll tell you I run for us all_


	2. disaster hearts

**What a lovely reception for the first chapter. Gotta tell ya, this story just keeps coming to me. My usual MO is I post because inspiration struck all at once and then my muse packs up and leaves to Florida and never comes back.**

 **But I keep getting good material for this thing. In that vein, I have no idea how long this will be or how long the average chapter will be. Just writing as I go.**

 **Anyhow, enjoy! Hopefully this chapter sets up the stage a little bit.**

 _(~)_

 _I held a jewel in my fingers_

 _And went to sleep_

 _The days were calm and the winds were prosy_

 _I said "Twill keep"_

 _(~)_

They don't have a long wait in the ER. Alexander's status as a senator means that they never do, but they do have a few minutes. Alexander had taken Eliza here right away, knowing she would back out if he waited too long.

Eliza slips to the bathroom, and Alex pulls out his phone and read a few texts.

 **Herc Mulligan: Dude, where are you? Not like you to be gone during the day.**

 **AHam: At the hospital. Wife's not well. Doc wants a chest x-ray. Says her fingers are swollen. Whatever that means.**

Hercules doesn't reply.

One of Hercules Mulligan's quirks is the man normally texts back extremely quickly. To a fault, sometimes he barely reads the texts before he replies. Alexander remembers once telling him that he was going to fight someone for the last loaf of tiger bread, and getting a call ten seconds later from Herc, asking if he needs backup or press coverage (he had only read until "fight"). So the long wait for a reply is a bit odd, Alex notes.

 **AHam: Herc?**

 **Herc Mulligan: Has she lost weight? Ever coughed up blood?**

 **AHam: Yeah? Probably bronchitis.**

Another long pause. Alex's heart rate starts to pick up again.

 **Herc Mulligan: Dude, when you're in with the doc, call me. Wanna talk to him.**

 **AHam: You trying to put the moves on my wife, man?**

 **Herc Mulligan: Just do it. Wanna talk to him.**

His attempt at levity gone unnoticed, Alex bites his lip, a tiny bit of fear gnawing at his stomach. He knows Hercules Mulligan well. He is large and intimidating, but an absolute teddy bear on the inside. He is little Elizabeth's favorite person. He is also a former doctor.

And he's worried.

 _(~)_

He calls and checks on the children. Alex Jr. tells him Angelica has started acting strange all of a sudden but the maid was there to help in a pinch. He also says William and Elizabeth are pretending to be zombies, that he's fifteen years old and not a twelve-year-old babysitter, and that Alex should be paying him for this torture, so it's business as usual.

Eliza slides back into their seat just as her name is called. The technicians change her into a shapeless gown and lie her down, still coughing, for the x-ray. They allow him to sit beside her and wipe her mouth and try to keep her still.

He is grateful for that.

Eliza has been by his side for everything. He is _painfully_ aware of the many times he could have been a _much_ better husband to her, and recently had made a vow to try harder, after…Philip.

The doctor was right, the process is painless as long as Eliza keeps still (which is difficult amongst the coughs). They are led into a private room to wait for results. Eliza looks a bit nervous, and Alexander hates seeing that look on her face, so he pulls out his phone and shows her videos of cat antics. She laughs, probably more to do with the fact that her husband, a US senator, is using his phone to Google "cat farts" more than actual content, but it works and that's all he cares about.

They sit for close to fifteen minutes before the doctor returns to the room, and Alex tries hard to read his face, but it is carefully schooled into a neutral expression.

He calls Herc and hands the phone off to the doctor. Eliza calls home to check on the children, and he subtly tries to hear Herc's conversation with the doctor. He only catches snatches of words, but there are a few he hears, and his blood turns to ice.

 _Biopsy. Carcinoma_.

Alexander Hamilton is not a doctor, he is a politician. But he knows what those words mean.

Cancer. They think his wife has cancer.

When they tell Eliza, she does not react. He suspects she knew something was wrong when he grabbed onto her as soon as he heard those chilling words. Maybe even before that.

He takes her hand and squeezes. She doesn't squeeze back. He leads her out and she follows without any trace of an expression.

The biopsy is scheduled for tomorrow, and they are sent home for tonight.

 _(~)_

By the time they get home, Eliza is wearing her calm mask that he knows so well. She tells the children she is fine, tucks little Elizabeth into bed, helps Alex Jr., James and John with their homework.

She comes to bed and curls up without a word to him, but he knows she isn't sleeping.

They have shared this same bed for twenty years, with the exception of the Reynolds affair. The mattress holds two divets, one on the right and one on the left. A side for each of them.

The middle is becoming suitably worn as well, for all the times recently that he has held her against him, unable to believe that the grace of forgiveness was actually real.

The room is littered with children's artwork, with photos of their family, with evidence of a life spent together.

And the love of his life breathes softly not a foot away.

He allows his mind to picture, for one terrible moment, his life without Eliza.

As a senator and father, as one of the most trusted men in the country. The person so many rely on.

The picture is a blur. No matter how he tries, he cannot bring it into focus. He is literally unable to fathom his life without Eliza's presence. A chill rockets up his spine and the room is suddenly very, very cold.

He knows he is getting ahead of himself. Knows that nothing is confirmed yet, and worrying about it does no good.

Still, that doesn't stop him from climbing into bed beside his wife of twenty years, pressing her against him and raking his hands through her soft hair.

Cancer will not take her, he vows. He will not let his family break again.

 _(~)_

 _Some people don't feel a thing  
Some kind of blissful dream  
Wish I could live that now_

 _(~)_


	3. attack, retreat

Come make your peace, come find your way  
Come lay your wreath at the alter of change

 _(~)_

He calls in sick to work the next day (the secretaries are stunned).

He holds her hand while they give her a sedative for the biopsy.

He threatens six nurses and two doctors, and they agree (very reluctantly) to let him stay.

She smooths a line on his forehead and tells him not to worry, he is too young and good looking for worry lines.

It successfully makes him laugh, and that puts a smile on her face.

He squeezes her hand and tells her not to distract herself by dreaming about some young, virile movie star.

She tells him if Christopher Jackson comes away to spirit her off, she's not saying no, full disclosure.

He sees them prepping what looks to be the biggest needle in the world, and he forces himself not to panic at the thought that they plan to stick this thing (has to be at _least_ four feet long) inside his wife.

The nurses drape Eliza with sterile dressings, leaving room around her lung area. He notices how they pile more blankets around her chest, like they are shielding the biopsy area from view. He thinks it odd and a bit pointless, given that she can't see it, but then realizes. Perhaps it's not just for her.

They clean her skin and inject her with the anesthetic. She inhales sharply but does not move.

He moves his hand to her hair and strokes the black strands.

The doctor smiles at Eliza, in an expression that is probably meant to be comforting, but there is nothing about this situation that will allow either of them to be comforted.

"Okay, hon, we're going to get started. You ready?"

Eliza does not respond. Her head is turned away from him, but she gives a small nod.

He squeezes her hand and turns to the doctor.

"She's ready."

In hindsight, it's probably a pretty quick process. And the doctor and nurse are calm as they work. As if this is just another day to them (which it probably is).

It takes everything in him not to tense, and to keep his hand gently stroking Eliza's hair as they lift the needle (seven feet, easy) to his wife's body.

He knows the exact moment the biopsy needle makes contact, because her brown eyes spill over with tears.

He strokes them away with his thumb, wishes desperately that he could do more.

What does Eliza do in situations like this? Usually, she can be found in prayer, he remembers. Eliza is religious, he knows. She goes to church most Sundays, prays before dinner. It brings her great comfort. She leaned on her faith during the death of her father. And Philip. He's never found the same comfort in it, but if it helps Eliza, he's willing to give it a try.

He folds his hands over hers and fixes his eyes on the floor.

He only knows one thing to say. In his head, he repeats the words firmly, no tremble in his voice.

"If you need to take someone; if you need a pound of flesh, you don't take her, you hear me? If you need a life, you take me. My wife is needed."

He doesn't suppose he has much clout with God but perhaps if he asks on Eliza's behalf, the powers that be would see how little she and their children deserved this.

The world had taken their son. To give his wife cancer as well is surely an injustice that cannot exist.

 _(~)_

The thought is really fucking funny considering what happens not one hour later.

Adenocarcinoma.

Stage 3.

Surgery is scheduled for removal of lymph nodes the cancer ( _cancer_ ) has spread to, a lobectomy for the affected part of the lung.

 _(~)_

She's waiting in recovery while the doctor tells him.

He doesn't even let the man finish.

He knows from one look at her that they've told her already.

The tears start before he can control it, and he falls into her arms.

He feels her arms wrap around him. He feels the tears soaking her hospital gown. He feels his fingers press so hard into her that it must bruise.

His wife has cancer.

Her fingers brush tears from his cheeks, he rests his head on her chest and lets the tears flow.

And a new feeling begins to take over his consciousness, one that will not go away for a good long while.

He supposes now he will have to get used to feeling in a constant state of dread and fear.

 _(~)_

She begs, and they let her go home for the night.

They tell the children individually. Angelica…he isn't sure she understands. She has been in therapy since Philip but often, she exists in her own world, no matter how hard they try to pull her to theirs.

He sees fifteen year old Alex Jr. and thirteen year James clench their fingers into fists and he knows they are trying to be strong.

Eliza brushes her fingers over Alex Jr.'s cheeks and takes James' hand, and that's all it takes before she is holding her oldest boys against her as they sob into her pyjamas.

Alex Jr. mumbles incoherently into his mother's chest. Alexander hears only snatches but does catch "don't go", and "mommy" from his teenage son.

John and William have a similar reaction. They cling tightly to their mother (along with their brothers, who haven't yet let go.

He knows little Elizabeth doesn't understand, but she feels the atmosphere of the room as she promptly bursts into tears. They tell her mommy is sick and needs to stay in the hospital for a little while, and another child is added to the pile.

Alexander leads Angelica over to the bed, and slides in beside Eliza, and the whole family grieves together.

Eliza's bravery stuns Alexander. She wipes tears from her babies' faces, squeezes his hand and brushes his hair away from his face.

He knows this will be their lives from now on. The first word on everyone's mind will be cancer. It will be the first thing people who see them think, it'll be the only thought on his children's minds, he can't think anything else.

His wife has cancer, and now cancer is their lives.

Eliza has lung cancer, stage three, having never smoked a day in her life. Having been nothing but good and just and true.

And her husband has never been any of those things.

He wonders how long something like this takes to become "real". Don't mistake, he heard the doctors. He's a smart man, and he knows what this means. Despite his upbringing, he is learned, and with Herc and Laurens on his side, he knows the meaning of words like _carcinoma_ , _malignant_ and _long term management_.

But still, Alexander Hamilton is a fighter. He stands up to his enemies and punches them in the nose (verbally. Usually).

And this invisible enemy invading his wife's body has a name but no form. He cannot fight this for her. He cannot rip it from her, not even to bear it himself.

All of that just feels...surreal.

Especially given the last few years. He supposes he had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, after Maria Reynolds, and Philip.

But this still feels cruel.

Next week Alexander Hamilton has to take his wife to have surgery to cut out a piece of her lung.

Then they will point radiation into her.

Then they will give her drugs that will make her sick and weak and make her hair fall out and all of this for a shot at keeping her alive.

At keeping what was left of their family standing.

He doesn't know if he can do this.

But he made a promise.

Several promises, actually. He promised Eliza at their wedding that he would be there in sickness and health, he promised his children he would be there for them, he promised Eliza that they would go through this together.

And in a life of broken promises, this is one he will die to keep.

 _(~)_

How long will I love you  
As long as stars are above you  
And longer if I may


	4. stay awake

**Putting this out there now: I'M SORRY THIS CHAPTER IS SO BORING. Think of it more like an interlude. Basically I am doing a version of camping for the next few days so I'm hoping I'll have lots of time to write with limited internet access, but for now, this is what I could get out.**

 **Little FAQ: No, I have never myself had cancer. I do lots of research for this story, so I hope it comes through!**

 **I have, however, had too many people around me who have had cancer, including my immediate family, so I also rely on their experiences a bit**

 **People who have never smoked absolutely can get lung cancer, frighteningly enough.**

 **While there are two main procedures for lobectomies, and the more minimally invasive, video assisted one is used more and more frequently, I used the other one in here.**

 **This is one long interlude. Again, no idea how long this story will be.**

 **Enjoy, and please leave a comment!**

 ** _Sometimes I feel like_**

 ** _I've never been nothing but tired_**

 ** _And I'll be working 'till the day_**

 ** _I expire_**

 **(~~~~~~~~~)**

Surgery is scheduled for Wednesday at 7am, the earliest they can get her in. The children refuse, flat out refuse, to go to school that day, but Eliza tells them they will be going.

She will not have them standing on some kind of death watch.

(the word makes all of them flinch).

Really, she insists, it will be a minor surgery. They will only keep her for a few days at most. The children should go to school, and Alex should to go work.

(That he refuses, and she knows better than to expect him to budge)

The children finally agree to go to school, if Alex promises to pick them up the second school is over, and let them come to the hospital to say goodbye to their mother before she goes under.

Again, Eliza's bravery stuns Alexander. The morning of, she rises as if it were a normal day. The children get dressed somberly, but she keeps her usual routine up, fixing them breakfast, brushing crumbs off William's school uniform and licking her hand to fix James' hair back into place (he still squirms away and they are all grateful for this bit of normalcy).

Eleven-year-old John grabs Eliza's hand as they go from the car to the hospital, joined quickly by seven-year-old William.

Eliza smiles at her children. They cling to her, even as she signs herself in, changes into a shapeless gown ("fetching, Mrs. Hamilton," Alex remarks, and she slaps his arm good-naturedly), and lies down on a gurney.

Clearly, the gurneys were not made to accommodate Hamilton-sized families, because every child climbs on beside their mother, and the gurney groans under the added weight.

Eliza laughs and allows them to stay for a few moments.

The second the doctor comes in the room, however, the slightly cheered atmosphere deflates. The children instinctively grab onto their mother, as if the doctor is coming to kidnap her.

She squeezes each of their hands, and tells them gently to climb down, and go to school. She adds that they should not worry about her, but he knows they will. The youngest children cry, and she gently uses her gown to wipe their tears.

"None of you worry," she repeats. "I won't have anyone falling apart on account of me. It's just a minor surgery, and I'll see you tonight."

She gives each one last kiss (even Alexander Jr., who actually tolerates it). It's a bad day for Angelica, so she still cringes when their now-oldest says she will have Philip drive her to school, and nearly runs out, chasing someone that isn't there.

(Someone fetches her as soon as she exits the door, but the damage has been done).

Alex arranges the children's ride to school, and then it is time to go to the operating room.

No matter how many people he threatened, he has not been able to force his way into the room.

However, he is allowed to hold her hand as she is wheeled to the operating room (they've been doing that a lot lately). She lies still, and he kisses her forehead as he opens the doors.

He is still marveling at how brave she is, how panicked he would be in this situation. So he's shocked when he goes to pull away and her hand seizes his. Her eyes catch his and they are full of tears.

It is so like his wife to hold herself together, sometimes he forgets that she falls apart sometimes too.

"Alexander," she breathes on a sob, and it's all she can say, but he doesn't need words to know how terrified she is. Her hand clutches his desperately.

"Hey, hey, hey." he says in a voice that he hopes is soothing. He lowers his forehead to touch hers and takes on her tactic of gently stroking her hair.

He doesn't know what to say, truly doesn't, to comfort her. He's never been good in situations like this.

Which is why it's a shock to all of them, when he starts softly singing.

"There used to be a greying tower alone on the sea  
You became the light on the dark side of me"

And it is entirely worth it, because her face lights in a smile.

It was their wedding song. A bit of a running joke, as they danced to it a few times while they were dating, and both found it a bit schmaltzy and sentimental. It actually made it onto the list of songs not to play at the wedding, but whoever was in charge of the music had apparently not been given the memo, because it ended up being the song for their first dance.

As soon as it had come on, they had both laughed, a kind of private joke between them, which only made it a better memory, in his opinion, as he recalled the guests looking at them in puzzlement.

He had stood by her and given a dramatic bow, extending his hand.

That first dance, that song, had become a hallmark for them.

So when he sings it now, he can actually see the tension melt from her.

Love remained a drug that's the high and not the pill  
But did you know that when it snows  
My eyes become large and the light that you shine can be seen?

Slowly, as they wheel her to the operating room, her hand slips from his.

 **(~~~~~~~~~)**

He makes his way to the waiting room. He finds only a few people there, considering the early hour, and he's grateful.

Alexander flops into a chair, his head in his hands.

The others around the room share a look with him, and he realizes. They are the same now. They are all here together, useless, while their loved one fight an invisible enemy. He is not a senator here, he is just a husband.

They all wait for a doctor to deliver the fate of their most loved.

His comes two hours later and introduces himself as Doctor Nam, an oncologist. He says the surgery went well. They were able to get most of the tumor, and this will help target chemo and radiation (those are words that still seem like they shouldn't be applied to Eliza. Someone so kind and gentle should not have to know words so forceful and frightening). The doctor tells him that she has been moved to recovery, but her body is strong and they will begin treatment in a few days.

He asks to see her.

He finally answers the four texts from James and tells him that he is going to see his mother, and he will pick him up at the scheduled time ("Remember Dad, school ends at 3:05. You better be pulling in by 3. I want to be in the car by 3:06" his son texts back)

He steels himself as he prepares himself to see Eliza.

It's not enough.

Her side is swathed in bandages. At stage three; they needed to through her side, past her ribs. Because they took a piece of her lung out, they have her on a ventilator to assist her breathing. Her black hair spreads over the pillow; her eyes are closed as a machine breathes for her.

And while Alexander has promised himself he will not cry, he feels tears well anyway.

She looks so small there. So helpless.

He spends the next few hours by her side, though she doesn't wake. One handedly, he reads through a few bill proposals, the other hand tucked into his wife's. He disentangles himself only momentarily, to respond to a few emails.

Around 2:30, he knows he has to leave but he can't begin to make the trip. He consoles himself with having given every single nurse and doctor within a five-foot radius his personal cell number and very specific instructions to call him if she so much as moved. (he backs this up with a very thinly veiled threat concerning how many hospital directors he knew). When he was reassured to the point of "even a finger twitch, we call you", he gives her hands a last squeeze and goes to collect his children.

Alex Jr., John and James go to the same middle and high school, and he sees them before school has officially let out, waiting with their hands poised over their lockers to the second the bell rings. He'll find out later that they had actually strategized this plan to take as little time as possible, so their bags are packed and ready, and the second the bell rings he is being dragged to his own car by his three oldest sons. Angelica's teacher shepherds her out and hands Alex her backpack, but apparently not quick enough, because one of his sons grabs it and one of Angelica's arms, another son grabs the other arm, and the last grabs Alex, and they are all forced to their car.

His sons have also googled the fastest route to William and Elizabeth's elementary school, and devised the quickest way to get to the kindergarten and the second grade.

Alex loves how much they love their mother, and it is evidenced by how they bombard him with questions on the trip to the hospital. Truthfully, he doesn't have many answers, but he does warn them what seeing their mother might be like.

The children have only ever known Eliza as strong and capable, so he knows seeing her on a ventilator will be hard.

He considers waiting until she is off, but that niggling voice at his subconscious reminds him that they may see worse as time goes on.

He tells his sons and daughters that Eliza is expected to wake tomorrow, and they may see her after school, but for now, she is asleep. They can still talk to her, but she wont respond.

He is never more proud of his children then when the oldest boys take Angelica's hands and John scoops up Elizabeth and holds William's hand. They will stick together. He and Eliza (mostly Eliza) raised some great kids.

She is indeed still out when they get in. He hears Angelica suck in a gasp, to be comforted by her brothers. Most of them step back, their hands over their mouths, and for long moments there is silence in the room.

Then Alex Jr. steps forward.

Alexander Jr. is his oldest son. He fits the role of oldest perfectly, though he is not technically the oldest child. He is strong, a leader, rarely shows any emotion but is tender with all his siblings. He reminds Alex very much of himself.

So it's no surprise now that he gently leads his group of siblings to their mother's bedside and sits down, mindful of the chest tubes protruding from her wounds. He picks up Elizabeth and sets her on the bed.

"You can talk to Mommy," he assures his youngest sister. "See that tube there in her mouth? Mommy had a hurt on her inside and the doctors took it out. The tube is helping the inside of her body get better."

He addresses Elizabeth, but Alexander suspects he is speaking to all of them.

Elizabeth's little hand touches the tube gently, then comes to rest on her mother's cheek.

"What about this tube?" she indicates the chest tube.

"That takes all the bad stuff out of her body," Alex Jr. assures her.

"Oh," Elizabeth accepts this with all the assurance of a three year old. "Hi, Mommy. Guess what I did in school today?"

Slowly, surely, the others come forward, until once again, the bed is filled with Hamilton children, and their father in the doorway, watching the scene in front of him with a soft smile.

 **(~~~~~~~~~)**

 ** _Breathe_**

 ** _Just breathe_**

 ** _Take the world off your shoulders_**

 ** _Put it on me._**

 **See that was almost like fluff, wasn't it?! And vintage Seal, because I could totally picture that in my mind. Fun story: when I googled 90s love songs, some interesting choices popped up, including but not limited to "Baby One More Time", and "Baby Got Back". So romance. Very love.**


	5. let it be me

**Oh guys. Oh, damn guys. See, usually these chapters flow pretty easily, and my muse is fairly cooperative. This one though. My muse and I fought at every step. I don't have a huge amount of confidence in this chapter, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!**

 **Also, storytime! I live in Thailand, and the typical way to get around here is via motorcycle taxis (you literally sit on the back of a motorcycle and the driver takes you where you want to go). They are not safe at all, and motorcycle drivers have no fear about darting in and out of traffic (but they're cheap, fast and convenient). So one day, a motorcycle I was on thought he could beat a truck. Long story short, he couldn't, he crashed and I got some pretty bad roadburns on my leg and foot. I had to keep it wrapped for weeks, and every day I would go into my school's nurse, god bless her, to unbandage, clean and rewrap my foot. Let me tell you something about taking bandages off wounds: it takes skin with it. And it freaking hurts. Now, I get that Eliza's wound is a surgical incision, so I am certainly taking creative liberties with it, and am definitely aware that this may not happen, but suspension of disbelief please.**

 **Also I can sum up my inspiration for this chapter in me saying to myself, "self, you haven't quite put the Hamiltons through enough. Torture them more."**

Yeah, we both carry baggage  
We picked up on our way  
So if you love me, do it gently  
And I will do the same

Alexander makes a vow to be there when Eliza wakes up, but that doesn't mean work stops.

He fields at least six calls from various people at his office, until he eventually turns his phone on silent and resolves to ignore it.

Various nurses come in and out all day, checking vitals, temp, and the chest tube.

They wean her off the ventilator, and she wakes the next day, when the children are visiting.

He knows because the shouts of "Mom!" are immediate. Whatever children were not on the bed quickly piled on, covering their mother with careful hugs and kisses.

He gives her hand a squeeze and she smiles at him.

"Hey beautiful. Have a good nap?" he asks.

"Bit uncomfortable," she rasps, which is the first sign he gets that she may still be in pain.

Much as their children want to sleep at the hospital with their mother, she sends them home, and Alex sends the children to school the next day. As it happens, they are gone when the nurse comes in, announcing that it's time to change Eliza's dressings. The doctor had already given her medication for pain (and much to her mortification, an anti-constipation med, as that was listed as one of the painkiller's main side effects).

Still, the nurse warns her that it may sting a bit, and then carefully pulls the first bandage off.

The sudden scream of pain she lets out raises the hairs on his neck.

"What the hell did you do?!" he yells at the nurse, seizing her hand.

"Sir," she says in an infuriatingly calm voice. "This is not uncommon. Seepage from the wound and surrounding skin often binds with the bandages, creating some pain when the bandage is removed. The best way to get through it is quickly."

Alexander takes in his wife's eyes, wide with pain, the bandage that is only beginning to be removed, and the nurse's expression.

"Find another way," he says resolutely. "Give her some morphine. But you will not do that again."

"No," Eliza says. "No morphine. The children are coming, I don't want to be asleep."

As it ends, the bandage has to come off, and they have to find a way to get through it. So in the end, Alexander's hand is clutched to Eliza's chest as the bandage is removed little by little.

Intellectually, he knows that they have to do it slowly to disturb the incision as little as possible.

However, with every whimper and shout of pain, he wishes they would rip it off.

This is torture for her, he knows. He tries every measure of comfort he can think of. He strokes her hair, he squeezes her hand, he sings to her.

She clutches his hand close, whimpers. Sweat breaks out on her forehead as he sweeps his hand across it.

When he tries to pull away to urge the nurse on, she clutches at him and refuses to let go.

This is torture for her, yes. But it is for him as well. Seeing her like this is his own personal hell.

She falls asleep quickly after, her strength sapped, but Alex sits in a chair beside her bed, with her scream running through his head over and over. His phone rings again, and it's all he can do to ignore it, because the temptation to answer it and vent his anger by telling the person on the other end to fuck off is nearly unbearable.

The next day, the children are visiting again. The nurses were getting to know the gaggle of Hamilton children well by this point. One slipped William some candy as he passed and he gave her a hug with all the pure heartedness of a seven year old.

John had just told some stupid joke he had heard at school, and Eliza was laughing, her oldest sons sitting by her bed while her youngest lay on her chest (opposite the chest tube), when the nurse walks in. Alex takes note of the bandages and wipes she carries and sees Eliza tense instantly. James and Alexander Jr. are still laughing as she pats their hand.

"Alex, go take your sister and brothers and get something to eat."

His laugh ends and he looks at his mother in puzzlement.

"Mom, we just ate."

"Then go take them downstairs, have them run around for a bit. Let your father and I have a minute."

"But Mom, we just got here…"

"Go, Alex. James, take your sister. Elizabeth, you can go get a candy from the machine."

Elizabeth squeals in excitement and grabs her brother by the hand (she had taken not being offered candy as a personal offence), dragging him out.

Most of the children follow compliantly, but Alex Jr. hangs back.

His son is too much like his namesake, Alex knows. When there's something wrong, he knows and he has to know what it is.

But his son takes his siblings and reluctantly leads them out and Alex grabs Eliza's hand.

"Do it quick," he commands the nurse.

Realistically, they probably do. The wound is healing and Alex is pretty sure Eliza only screams a few times, but she still cries and it still cuts into him. Seeing her like this is terrifying and the fact that it will only be a preview to what they're about to experience makes his stomach turn.

Although not quite so much as when the nurse finishes and opens the door to reveal their white-faced oldest son in the doorway.

He had heard, Alex knew. He heard everything.

He grabs at the nurse's arm, just like his father.

"What did you do to my mom?" he breathes quietly.

The kind nurse places a soothing hand on his arm.

"Honey…"

"What did you do!"

Eliza reaches out to him. "Sweetheart, it's okay. They were just changing the bandage."

Alex Jr. comes to her side, slowly and still white as a sheet. Eliza brushes strands of the long dark curls out of his face.

"They hurt you," her son gasps. "You were screaming."

"I'm fine, baby," she soothes, bringing him down to sit down on the bed with her.

"They hurt you," he repeats.

Alex can see the wheels turning in his son's head, and he sees the reality of the situation settling in for him.

His mother is sick. His mother is in the hospital. His mother is hurt.

Alexander sees that settle in his fifteen-year-old son, and thinks, not for the first time, that their children do not deserve this. They are too young for this. Alexander Jr. has never looked more like a child than when his mother pulls him onto the bed and lays his head against her chest, the boy's expression never changing from white-faced and frozen.

He refuses to leave again after that, not even to go home. Every doctor that comes in the room is met with a look of suspicion. Every instrument they bring in is scrutinized carefully. Alexander takes the other children home when Alex Jr. eventually falls asleep in his mother's bed with his arms around her, looking years younger than the teenager he is.

Two days later, the bandage comes off without pain, the wound is healing nicely, Eliza can take short walks around the room, and they are allowed to go home briefly, before the chemo starts.

And when that happens, Alex comes to a realization.

It's something he's always known, but never really thought about: their household, his life, their children's lives run because of Eliza. She is the lynchpin at the center of their lives.

Not only that, she thrived in that role.

She knew about every appointment with Angie's therapists. She knew about all of John's baseball games. She was on the parent committee at Elizabeth's school.

She somehow managed to keep everyone fed, clothed and alive, and still get them everywhere they needed to go, and know about every facet of their lives.

But when she comes home, she can't. Much as it pains her, she can only lie on the bed with pillows surrounding her. She can't help James with his homework. She can't pick up Elizabeth. The driver must take Angie to her appointments.

Their entire house had been thrown off-kilter. Alex struggles to keep up, and counts it as one more thing this disease has already taken.

The entire house is unsettled.

The children are sometimes sent to school without lunches, though Alex has been up until 2am the night before, trying to make sure everything got done.

Eliza is healing, so she is tired and a bit cranky.

She doesn't want Alex to help her out of bed, but she can't do it herself.

She certainly doesn't want him to help her in and out of the bathroom, but her mobility is limited.

She doesn't want to burden the children, but she can't be the mother they are used to right now.

She abhors the oxygen mask they sent home with her, but she sometimes needs it, after a part of her lung was cut out.

The frenetic, tense energy in the house winds up like a spring. Alex dreads the day it all boils over.

And then, on the worst day since Eliza has been home, the doorbell rings.

Alex goes to answer it, swearing if it is one more neighbor with one more "pity pie", he actually will throw it in their faces.

Instead, like angels from heaven, Lafayette, Laurens and Hercules Mulligan descend on their house, bearing food and gifts for the children.

Alex couldn't have been happier to see Jesus himself.

The children shout and jump on them.

Elizabeth attaches herself to Herc and doesn't let go.

(Eventually, he takes her to see her mother and offers to care for her this evening).

John, James and Alex Jr. immediately rope Laf into a game of soccer ( _football_ , he insists. _You know you Americans are the only ones in the world who call it soccer.)_

William, his quietest son, is content to sit down with Laurens and read him the latest book from school. William is their reader, would sit for hours with a book. Alexander knows John Laurens as much like himself, unable to sit still for too long, but he patiently helps the boy sound out all the unfamiliar words and reads with him as long as William wants.

They make sure the children have clean clothes, feed them, pack leftovers into the fridge for lunches tomorrow.

For the first time in a long time, Alex breathes a sigh of relief.

He goes and checks on Eliza, and finds her already in pajamas, settled in bed with a hot meal in front of her (hopefully she'll eat some of it), and Herc surfing through pictures on his phone, showing her all the people on twitter who are sending thoughts her way, while Elizabeth plays with his hair, adorning it with ribbons and bows (the fact there is limited hair there to work with doesn't seem to bother her).

He reminds himself that he has the greatest friends in the world.

When all the children settle into an exhausted sleep, his friends crack open a few beers and sit with him. They don't force him to talk and he is grateful for that, but the silence is comfortable.

They leave around midnight, promising to come more often.

Alexander slides into bed, propping more pillows around Eliza. She gives him a sleepy smile, and both slide into a fitful rest.

Next week brings the unfamiliar beast of chemo, but for the first time, Alexander feels their village of friends and family rallying behind them.

I am never to know what history hides  
I can cut through the stone but I won't see inside  
The evidence fades but the legend lives on  
What came from the heart can never be wrong

 **How does one finish?**

 **Very sorry for the lack of Lams in this fic. Luckily, AO3 is very well stocked with such fics!**

 **So I got a little bit of writing done on my trip, and once this boring monstrosity of a chapter is out of the way, I'm hoping I'll be over the hump. I've planned forward a bit, and this is looking to be about 12 chapters. Wish me luck on finishing it.**

 **Anyhoo, it's rainy season here in Thailand, and I am heading to bed to the sound of the rain.**

 **Night!**


	6. you call it madness i call it love

**Hey guys, guess what? I have a cough Granted, that may be from traveling for 24 straight hours and a change of climate but still.**

 **In other news, I have found three perfect songs for this fic and am considering making an 8tracks playlist of songs that go with this. Would you guys be interested in this?**

 **Even through the darkest phase  
Be it thick or thin  
Always someone marches brave  
Here beneath my skin**

They return to the doctor one week and six days after Eliza comes home.

She is mostly recovered from the lobectomy, barely uses her oxygen anymore. She's returned to a somewhat normal schedule.

They still visit doctors entirely too often.

Alex never thought hearing that Eliza had healed nicely from the surgery was a bad thing, but it was today, because that meant she was ready for chemo and radiation.

The primary oncologist, Doctor Nam, had led them into his office.

He explained that Eliza's form of cancer was more advanced than they'd like, so they were going to "be aggressive in our attack". However, she should be able to come daily to the clinic and receive her chemo, then go home at night. He knows that is a relief to Eliza.

They ask the doctor the usual questions, will she be sick, will she lose her hair, but as it turns out, every cancer is different. They can't tell her if all of her hair will fall out or just thin, they don't know how sick she'll get or if it will affect caring for the children.

The doctor pats her on the shoulder and smiles.

"Unfortunately, chemo is a wait and see kind of thing."

Alex hates that answer, but he's learning to deal with great unknowns.

 _-break-_

They check her into the hospital again for a minor procedure to insert a tube into her chest called a port. It's a much less intense surgery than the lobectomy, but Alex is still trying to wrap his head around two surgeries in a matter of weeks.

Eliza smiles and tell him it's a blessing in disguise, that now they won't have to connect her to an IV every time she has to have chemo, but there are a lot of words in that sentence that don't seem to go with the word "blessing".

Since the surgery, Eliza's calm mask is back in place. She insists on doing everything herself, and rarely tells him or the children if she is in pain, but he has known her for too long, and he can tell when she is hurting anyway.

He tries to be there without being overbearing, so he'll sometimes pass by her and slip a pain pill into her pocket, or make sure all the heavy lifting is done before she can get to it (she does comment on it being the first time he's done the laundry in years).

The word has gotten out, in this day and age, about Eliza's cancer, but they all pretend they don't see the trashy magazine headlines or the online articles. They pretend they don't see the pitying looks from the other mothers when Eliza goes to one of James' soccer games. They pretend they don't see how everyone outside their house looks at her like she is going to collapse on the spot.

How little they know his wife, Alex thinks. She maintains herself through sheer force of will, for him and for the children.

Herc, Laurens and Laf make good on their promise to come around more often. Laf brings his kids around to hang out with the older boys, and he knows his sons are grateful for a break from their school friends, who don't seem to know how to act around them.

Herc texts precisely every second day, always asking what he can do. Eliza nudges Alex once and tells him to take advantage of it and go get some "feminine products", just to see if he'll do it. The sparkle in her eyes tells him she's joking, and he doesn't do it because he can picture with embarrassing clarity how that would go. Hercules Mulligan would do that the way he does everything, jumping into it with both feet, and he doesn't think he could handle getting a call from his friend, telling him that he has consulted with the salespeople and he thinks Playtex is the right option in this scenario, but that they shouldn't rule out Tampax for next time.

And Laurens is just there, in his quiet way. He comes over sometimes and sits with Alex on nights when Eliza has already gone to bed, he plays with the children, who adore him, and most of all, he keeps Madison off Alex's back.

(Once, he texts Alex a creepily taken picture of Madison with the most embarrassing expression on his face, with the caption "HERC MAKES THIS EXACT FACE! #twinsies and the whole thing is just so ridiculous that Alex has to laugh)

Without even realizing it, Alexander trades the life he knew for a whole different life. Instead of planning his life around meetings, he plans his life around radiation treatments. Instead of making sure that he is there to speak at every event, he counts it as good enough if someone from his office is there to speak. Instead of grabbing takeout on the way back to the office, he goes home and haphazardly cooks dinner for his family, when he can barely make toast.

They bend their lives around chemo. The first day, Alexander insists on going with her. The oncology clinic looks overwhelmingly intimidating, for reasons unknown. Alex swallows down the Kansas sized lump in his throat and threads his arm through his wife's. She gives him a wobbly smile in return and they go in.

It's really quite a calm affair. They check in, a nurse takes Eliza's blood. They check her vitals, then lead her to a room with a few reclining chairs. Eliza is instructed to sit. They give her some premedication for nausea (she already looks a bit pale) and then bring out a bag of clear liquid.

Face to face with the beast he has been dreading, Alex glares at it, even as the inanity of resenting a plastic bag occurs to him.

They attach it and he can't take his eyes off the poison that will invade his wife's body.

He feels her hand grab his and squeeze, because once again, she as the sick one, is comforting him.

He sits there in tense anticipation for two hours, before the port is disconnected, and they are told to go home.

He hovers over Eliza the whole day, watching for any sign of distress, until she tells him to go away, and that he's driving her crazy.

He is actually calmer when they head to bed. The day has been as close to normal as possible. Eliza's cheeks are still pink, she ate a full meal, and has not had any adverse reactions.

The doctor had told them that many patients maintain a fairly normal life when going through chemo. He dares to hope that may be them.

Or he does until he wakes up in the middle of the night after feeling Eliza rocket away from him and run to the bathroom.

He hears the retching and his heart drops to his feet.

It's even worse as he sees her bent over the toilet, emptying her stomach in violent bursts.

So lost as to what to do, he can only grab her hair (gently) and hold it back to the sound of vomiting mixed with sobs. When she finally slumps against the wall, her eyes meet his, and her face is stained with tears.

"Darling," he whispers, feeling entirely useless.

"Alex," she sobs. "I have cancer"

And so, on the first day of chemo treatments, husband and wife cry together, at 3am on a bathroom floor.

Luckily, all days are not like this. The doctors say the first night was likely just Eliza's body reacting to the new medication, but they refuse to change it.

 _-break-_

Alex scours the internet for home remedies to treat nausea, but the best resource Eliza finds ends up being the other chemo patients she sits with during treatments. She is on daily treatment for now, so she goes to the clinic every day, sits for three hours while the chemo drips in, and goes home. It takes two full weeks for her to convince him that she can not only go on her own, but can drive herself there and back.

The women at the clinic seem to take Eliza under their wing. According to her, some have been coming for years. They advise her to take her medication before she feels nauseous, even if she feels perfectly fine, because if she takes it when she starts feeling sick, she won't be able to keep it down.

She tries this and it works.

She still throws up occasionally, and it still sends him into a panic, but there is no more periods of waking up and vomiting.

She does need him to help with the kids more, because while she isn't typically sick, she is tired. Completely exhausted. He finds her napping in the most random of places. On top of the laundry, at the dining room table, even once across the hood of the car ("I was just checking to see if the engine was overheating," she explains sheepishly).

On a Tuesday, he picks Eliza up from clinic and she is busily chatting with another woman. He almost recoils when he takes in her frighteningly thin arms and the hat that sit on top of her hairless head.

She looks so sick.

"Alex," Eliza smiles and beckons him over. "Come meet Tia. Tia, this is my husband Alexander."

"Of course, Senator Alexander Hamilton," she grins, and her smile is happy and relaxed.

"Good to meet you."

"Alex is fine," he carefully shakes her hand.

"Tia has stage 4 lung cancer," Eliza explains casually, like she's just told him that Tia's favorite color is orange.

His look of shock must have shown, because Tia laughs. "Welcome to the Washington Hospital, Alex. One of the rare places where cancer is actually entirely normal."

Tia taps the woman beside her on the shoulder and fixes her with a hard look.

"Whatcha' in for?" she rasps in a harsh voice.

The woman grins. "Martha. Stage 3 osteosarcoma."

Tia throws her head back and laughs.

"They gotcha in the bones! Poor girl!"

They all grin, and Alex realizes the room's atmosphere is pretty much the last thing you would expect from a room full of people with cancer: it's light, even happy.

That helps, actually. It helps a lot.

Until Wednesday, when Angelica is functionally kicked out of school.

 **The staircase tips  
The foot trips  
The moment explodes**

 **Notes:**

 **Sorry this took so long!**

 **Believe it or not, this has been more regularly updated than 90% of my fics :P**

 **Thank you all for your lovely comments!**


	7. when the sun goes down

**Mayyyyybbbee this will be 13 or 14 chapters.**

 **I can't stop and yet I can't seem to write with any kind of consistency.**

 **But the people have spoken and they want a fanmix, so a ficmix you get. Follow the link:**

 **www . 8tracks sadie-reay hold-me-till-it-sleeps-a-fanmix**

 **As always, read, comment and enjoy!**

 **What if I told you** **  
** **I could lose you?** **  
** **If I waited,**

 **Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow  
May be too late **

Hey, here's something that's important, going forward:

Alexander Hamilton is an idiot.

But it's actually worse than that. Everyone knew Alexander Hamilton is an idiot. Why else would he have essentially neglected his family? Or slept with a 23 year old groupie?

Yes, everyone knew he was an idiot, but in this instance, he was a particular idiot because he had thought that was it.

That the cancer, the chemo, the exhaustion, the overwhelming feelings of helplessness, that was as bad as it got.

See? Idiot.

Of course it got worse. Actually, more than one thing got worse.

And it would of course, happen on the same day.

Eliza had been doing so well. _They_ had been doing so well. Their family had been doing well.

And then one morning he wakes and she is not in his arms as she usually is (she always told him he was clingy when he slept). Nor is she even in the bed.

No, instead he finds her in the bathroom, passed out with her head on the toilet seat and vomit soaking her clothing, the sharp scent permeating the whole top floor.

Again, he thanks God for his children, because James and Alex Jr. automatically get up and start getting everyone ready when their mother doesn't, and blissfully, don't ask any questions.

He holds his breath and steps gingerly over to her.

"Eliza," he whispers. "Eliza, honey, wake up."

She wakes.

But she wakes only to keep vomiting.

He forces some water into her and she throws it back up.

Her head lolls and she is too exhausted to sit up.

Alexander props her against the bathroom wall, tosses the keys to James and Alex Jr. and tells them to get the driver to take them to school, and runs back into the bedroom.

He grabs some spare PJs for Eliza and drags her into the bathtub, fully clothed. She fists his shirt. Drags him into an embrace. They are both covered in vomit, and he makes a decision in a split second. Drawing her onto his lap, he runs a tub of water. She lies limply on top of him, in an entirely un-Eliza way.

At first, he thinks the water droplets that hit his shirt are kickback from the spray, but he feels her shoulders shake and knows better.

She cries into his shirt, and her cries turn into heaving sobs, fragments of words mangled into them.

" _Useless_ …can't _even stand_ …. _how am I….Alex.."_

He thinks he catches snatches of something that sounds like _so long_. He rubs her back.

"Eliza, how long has this been going on?"

She doesn't meet his eyes, but mumbles through tears. _Not usually this bad_.

He curls a finger under her cheek and brings her teary face to meet his.

"Have you been sick during the night before?"

Her lack of response is a response in itself.

His back goes rigid. "For how long?"

"Few days."

"Eliza, you should have told me.

"You had enough."

"You are my _wife_. We go through this together."

This starts a new round of sobs, with no end in sight.

He lowers both of them into the bath, fully clothed.

It's a full hour, and the water has long since turned cold and he has promised he will make the doctors change her chemo, this won't happen again (it's a lie and they both know it, but she accepts it anyway), when he declares her clean enough. He helps her into her pajamas and lays her in the bed, where she falls asleep almost instantly.

And then he gets the call from the school.

The nurse he had hired but never used arrives within twenty minutes. He feels equal parts pulled out the front door to go to his daughter, and unable to leave his wife with a stranger.

He probably breaks several speed laws on the way to the high school. He finds the principal, Angie's teacher, and a few other people huddled around the bathroom door. The girl's bathroom. Of course.

Angie had asked to go to the bathroom, they told him. Ten minutes later, the teacher was about to send someone looking for her when three girls ran into the class and told the teacher that Angie was in the bathroom, shrieking and hooting.

"Like an animal," they had said. She had growled at them.

When they asked her what she was doing, she had burst into random shrieks and shouts. They were scared. They thought she was crazy.

The teacher tells him that Angie had been acting strangely for the past few months. Since Philip, she says.

(Alexander still winces at the name).

But she had always been manageable. They had always been able to calm her down. Until today.

Today she seemed to have no idea who (or what) or where she was.

He opens the door to the toilet gingerly.

He's never been in a women's bathroom before. Well, that's not true. One time, when he and Eliza were younger and they were in that new lovers phase and…

His attention is redirected at the sight of his disheveled daughter, her eyes focused on the fluorescent lights above her.

"Angie? Angel, what's going on?"

She's sitting on a bank of sinks. She turns to look at him and her face lights up.

"Daddy! Oh daddy, you should have been here! We were having such _fun_! Where did you go?"

"Angel…" he makes his way to her, pulls her down from the sink, rests his hands on her cheeks.

"Angelica, do you know where you are? Do you know what happened?"

Her brow furrows into a look of absolutely genuine confusion.

"Of course, Daddy. Will you come play with us?"

"Us?" he squeaks.

She nods brightly. "Me and Philip. We're having such a good time."

And this is all the reminder he needs that things in his life don't get better, they only get worse.

He wraps an arm around her shoulders and pushes the door open, leading her out of the bathroom. The principal beckons them towards her office. By this time, students have started to filter out into the halls. They stare at Alexander and Angelica, whispering to each other. Alexander wraps a protective arm around his daughter. They have no idea, his mind screams. They have no idea what Angelica has been through. How dare they judge her?

"Mr. Hamilton," the principal sighs. "We can't continue on like this. This isn't good for Angelica."

He shakes his head. This can't be happening, not now.

"She's just having a rough day. She isn't…she needs school right now. She needs stability."

"Mr. Hamilton, _she_ is not stable right now. I understand things are difficult with Mrs. Hamilton at home –"

"What's she talking about, Daddy?" Angelica interjects. "What's wrong with Mom?"

The principal points to his daughter with one hand, as if to indicate, "do you see what I mean?"

Remember when he said he was an idiot? He is an even bigger idiot now, because he has no idea how to handle this.

He knows full well that his reputation precedes him. He should be gearing up for a fight. He should fight for his daughter's right to remain in school, for the tiny bit of stability his family has left.

But he is just so goddamned _tired_. It's like the fight has been sucked right out of him.

They slide a few pamphlets of therapeutic programs toward him; tell him Angelica may come back when she's stable, that they are here for any questions or concerns. Alex Jr., James and soon John still attend school here. He can't avoid these people. He can't avoid everyone knowing how badly his family is falling apart.

Eliza is awake when he gets home. But weak. She looks so much older, so much more tired.

He tells her quickly and she helps him (as best she can) get Angie settled into bed (she had nearly fallen asleep on the car ride home, the day's events exhausting her) before she curls up in their bed, pale-faced and in shock.

Cancer and mental illness rearing their ugly heads. What a day.

He lays his head in his hands, far too tired to sleep.

Eliza's head rests gently on his shoulder. Her hand moves across his back in circles.

He's so tired. So very, very tired.

He doesn't know what to do anymore.

In the proceeding weeks, Angelica is entered into a treatment program. They don't promise it will be entirely outpatient.

He can't even think of checking his daughter into a psychiatric hospital.

Eliza goes to chemo most days. She and Tia still have many of the same days, and he knows that cheers her a bit, but the effects are now past simple exhaustion, and it is terrible.

Eliza vomits, is too weak to stand, can't eat so her weight drops frighteningly fast.

One day, as she lies in bed, Angelica tells her "Mom, Philip says you look like a ghost. He says he would know."

That's worse than the treatment.

Electoral season picks up just as the first cycle of treatment finishes, and Alexander tries his damndest to serve both masters, to garner votes and still be there for his family.

One advisor suggests using the sympathy vote, telling voters to vote because his wife is sick.

Alexander narrowly avoids punching him.

Jefferson grins smugly at him over the latest numbers and remarks "you sleeping, Hamilton?"

Another fight is narrowly avoided.

He gets up at 5am with Eliza, smoothing her hair back as she retches into the toilet and mopping up the bathroom floor (the maid already comes five times a week and it's not enough).

Eliza rises to help get the children ready for school. She insists on this, though she can barely stand. So, functionally, Alexander helps her help them and the process takes over an hour.

Then he leaves Eliza with the nurse (or sometimes drops her off at the clinic) and heads to work.

He's home by four-thirty, helps the children with their homework, tries his best not to crack and order takeout for dinner, sets the children to sleep, and makes sure Eliza has taken all of her medications.

Bed comes around 1am, but sleep does not.

He gets, on average, three hours of sleep a night.

He'd love to say it doesn't affect him, but it does.

He actually does hit Jefferson once, when the smug asshole hadn't said anything different than his usual taunts.

Why Jefferson doesn't report it, he doesn't really understand.

He yells at James about a typo in a report once, and makes the boy cry. James locks himself in his room for the rest of the night and will not hear any apologies.

He sees Madison's unimpressed expressions when he notes how lackluster he is, how halfhearted his work has become. He is well aware that Madison is grooming him to go far, but he can't be bothered to care about disappointing his boss.

Eliza starts her second, more intense round of chemo while they struggle to find their new normal. Her hair falls out and she cries. He is tempted to as well. He's aware it's just hair, sure, but the loss just makes it so much more official.

His wife is sick. His wife has cancer.

He asks her if she wants him to shave his head too (he'd do it, he loves his long hair but he'd do it in a heartbeat) but she tells him not to.

One day, he stops by Saks and buys the prettiest, most expensive scarf he can find and doesn't care how much it costs.

He presents it to her and nearly cries when her face lights in a smile.

He helps her wrap it around her head and when he's done, he slides his hands down to her cheeks and appraises her.

She looks at him with trepidation that feels almost silly. She's never not beautiful to him. He presses a long kiss to her cheek and tells her this.

She does cry after that.

It's the small moments, he is learning.

Maybe he didn't appreciate them before, but these small moments in a world so overwhelming are all that matters now.

 **I won't cry for yesterday  
There's an ordinary world  
Somehow I have to find  
And as I try to make my way  
To the ordinary world  
I will learn to survive**

 **And the grand tradition of sucky ending continues!**

 **I think we may have a small interlude from the unrelenting angst in the next chapter!**


	8. being alive

**The story behind this chapter: fluff** _ **was**_ **planned, but as the thing I am worst at writing, it was planned to be brief. However, after a talk with one of my friends who knows my writing, I was told in no uncertain terms "you are going to write fluff. You are going to give your readers** _ **at least**_ **a full chapter of fluff. You will not ruin it with any angst. You will do it."**

 **Which was SO difficult with this being the week Lin, Leslie and Pippa leave. So I struggled like crazy with this chapter. Good god did it put up a good fight against being written. But I prevailed, and I hope you enjoy, and that it was mildly acceptable!**

((~))

 **I always knew there would be a miracle** **  
** **I wondered when and how** **  
** **And I will see a miracle** **  
** **There will be a miracle** **  
** **If not soon, now**

Life moved fast, and yet painfully slowly. Alex is learning to count it in month-long intervals, from the time Eliza was diagnosed in late December of 2016.

In January, tests were performed, and Eliza went through surgery.

In February, she came home and recovered.

March, April and the first parts of May were filled with chemo, in all of its bipolar-like effects.

Alex marked six months of this roller coaster in late May. Half a year.

And then in late May, Eliza completed the required ten weeks of chemo, and they went in for a progress report.

He took the day off, insisted on being there.

She takes him into the oncology building, introduces him to the doctors and nurses she'd become so familiar with. The whole place still makes him uncomfortable, and he knows she can tell, but he is still grateful to all those who made this experience survivable.

Tia makes Eliza a ridiculous t-shirt that says "I went to the chemo building and all I got was the need to throw my hairbrush out." Eliza laughs so hard she nearly chokes.

Cancer is one big game of give and take, he is learning. An uneven game, to be sure, with so much more take than give. But he has never felt closer to his family, his friends, and especially his wife than in these last six months, to say nothing of the new people like Tia and the exceptionally kind doctors and nurses.

The bastard orphan was given an amazing family and the best friends he could ask for, and he hadn't appreciated them for a long time. Maybe that was part of the give.

That didn't mean the take part was not painful, though. He vividly remembers the feeling when Eliza was diagnosed, feeling like the floor was falling out from under them, feeling his stomach drop to his feet. He remembers sobbing in her arms, like she could be taken from him any second.

He remembers how gently their children treated their mother in the next few months, as if they even raised their voice their mother would break.

The first time Alex Jr. actually got annoyed enough to snap back at his mother, she had given him a hug and thanked him, and the ice was officially broken.

After that, cancer became their new normal. The floor was no longer falling out, but the ground was still shaky.

Until they return to the doctor to see her latest scans. The spots that had condemned their last few months had shrunk, they explained, almost disappeared. That meant the cancer was functionally gone. Eliza was now in remission. She'd need maintenance treatment for the next few months, but cancer can finally, _finally_ take a backburner in their lives.

Eliza bursts into tears of relief, he wraps his arms around her and squeezes. His wife will live. Disease is no longer taking over her body.

She presses her forehead to his.

"I'm alive. _We're_ alive," she sobs. "How lucky we are to be alive right now."

Summer 2016

The sun shines a little brighter that day.

The children cry when they tell them, and this time it's tears of happiness.

What comes next is a blissful summer. Maybe there is something about cancer that makes one realize how very fragile life is. Alex vows to never forget.

Eliza sometimes wakes the children late at night to go for ice cream, takes the oldest children to every event (no matter how much they "Mommmmmm" at her). She teaches Elizabeth how to swim. His wife and youngest splash in the pool, giggles spilling from the child's lips. Afterward, Eliza wraps her in a towel far too big for her little body, and snuggles the child on the pool deck until she falls asleep. Alex commits this to memory.

They go to therapy with Angelica together. There are good days and bad days. Good days where it seems like their daughter is coming back to them. But then there are also days where Angelica refuses to go because Philip would be lonely at home all alone.

It knifes both of them, but this time they deal with it together.

Madison grows more and more unhappy with how much more time Alexander spends with his family. He feels the disapproving glances but he cannot stay away.

 _Non-stop_ , they used to call him.

He's learning the value of stopping every now and then.

On the fourth of July, Alexander does something he's never done before. He packs up his whole family and drives them out to watch the fireworks in a field by Laf's house.

Of course, his packing skills leave much to be desired, so they end up with three bags of candy, a tin of corn, and only one blanket to speak of.

The children run wild on a sugar rush but they finally quiet them down enough to wrap all eight members of their family in the one blanket (perhaps nine. Alexander likes to think that he's there).

The fireworks are beautiful, but it is nothing compared to the sight of his family squished together. Alex Jr. and John hold Angelica, stroking her hair to soothe her in case the fireworks frighten her. James holds Elizabeth in his lap, pressing his littlest sister to him and keeping her warm in his embrace. William allows Eliza to rest him on her lap as best she can at seven years old.

He thinks it can't get better than this.

And it does.

Because one day, Herc, Laurens and Laf come bursting in, waving an envelope over their heads.

They're giggling with glee, not unlike fifteen year old schoolgirls (as he tells them) when they demand that he gather the family into the living room.

They need to take a break, his friends begin. A break from the hell that had been the last few months.

And that would come in the form of a vacation to St. Croix, planned and paid for entirely by the best friends he could ask for (their expression, but he can't disagree).

They had been planning it for two months, they admit. And now that Eliza has finished chemo and is in remission, it's the perfect time. The kids are off school for the summer. Laurens will deal with Madison's objections. They planned around every "but" or "no" he could come up with. But even with their combined pooled resources, they hadn't been able to come up with the cash.

Alex tells them he has the money, but they insist that's not how a _gift_ works. So they spread the word around Alex's office.

In less than a day, two large anonymous donations had come in, paying for the trip in full.

They're going to the Caribbean.

And they've planned something special for this trip.

He's going to marry his wife (again).

He doesn't know what to say.

Eliza throws her arms around them in gratitude.

When his friends see him struggling, they come up to Alex of their own volition.

Laf grasps him tightly, with enthusiasm.

"Take a break, mon ami. Respirer."

Herc crushes him in a bone-crunching hug and tells him the same. Not to worry. And that he'll speak to the doctors to make sure Eliza is taken care of.

Laurens hugs him with hesitation. Lingers a bit, Alex thinks. Tells him that Eliza is lucky to have him (Alex knows it's the other way around).

There has always been a part of Laurens that he holds back when it comes to his friendship with Alex. He has wondered many times what it is, but Laurens has never wanted to share.

The children will stay for a week, be in the ceremony, and then fly home. They've arranged people to care for them for the extra week that Alex and Eliza will be there.

The children shout and jump and clamor around his friends (he does hear some thank yous in the mix, and Alex Jr. shouting "a whole week on the beach? _Awesome_. He's excited until James reminds him that he'll have to be in his parents wedding ceremony and thus watch them kiss, a fact that seems to thoroughly disgust their oldest three).

They leave tomorrow.

His amazing friends have even packed their bags already.

He's admittedly worried about how his wife will handle the trip, but Eliza's strength has been on the rise since her last round of chemo finished. She takes the trip with ease.

She's almost like the Eliza he knew before all of this.

His memories of St. Croix barely compare to how beautiful the island is in person. He stands on tarmac of the airport and breathes deeply, taking in a scent that somehow still feels like _home_.

They spend their first few days on the beach.

The motion of the water lapping at the sand seems to soothe Angelica. She's more coherent than they've seen in a long time.

Alex Jr. spots a group of girls and ever so slowly inches his towel closer and closer to them.

He's got his father's charm. When he's close enough to speak with them, it's only a few moments before they grab his hand and drag him into the water, and they don't see him for the rest of the day (James complains until he learns the resort has a basketball court with regular games and he is "so here for that!"

William and Elizabeth refuse to get in the water at first, so when they're not looking Alex and Eliza scoop one up each and carry them into the water. They cling to their parents but eventually smile and allow themselves to enjoy it.

The wedding (can he still call it that if they're already married) is planned entirely by Laf, Laurens and Herc, with help from Eliza's sisters.

To Alex's great surprise, Angelica and Peggy tell him that they contributed very little. Supposedly, Laf has a great sense of color coordination and Herc must have been Pinterest-ing like crazy, because he came for wedding planning with a full binder of ideas. Laurens, they said, was mostly there to make sure Laf and Herc didn't go crazy and plan to have them ride in on elephants or something.

Peggy and the older Angelica seize Eliza and keep her the night before the wedding (protests of "she's _already_ my wife" seem to fall on deaf ears, but he's glad to let her spend this time with her sisters).

In the morning, he gets the children dressed with the help of his friends, and they all make their way to the outdoor venue.

Alex is amazed. It's absolutely beautiful, in mid-day with cream white fabric lacing over the seats to form a sort of tent, the chairs adorned with white and pink sprigs of flowers.

Simple, yet beautiful.

It is, he jokes, probably nicer than their first wedding.

He finds himself inexplicably nervous as he stands at the front. His party (William and John, plus Laf, Herc and Laurens) stands upright beside him and he couldn't ask for better people, but he's still nervous.

That feeling doesn't cease until the music plays Eliza is led down the aisle by her two oldest sons, one on each arm.

Beautiful doesn't even begin to cover how she looks. Her short hair has been curled and is adorned with a band of flowers. Her dress is simple, strapless and knee length. Her cheeks glow with health. She's so beautiful, so perfect, he can barely look at her.

And to his shock, when he does, he's reminded of that seventeen year old girl, in that crowded dance hall, the first time he met. Or the bright eyed twenty year old, her shaking hands in his, the first time they did this.

He's not put in mind of the fragile, sick woman of the last six months.

And that is a bigger gift that Laf, Laurens and Herc could ever comprehend.

The boys give their mother away, as James grabs onto his father's arm and says "You better take really good care of her", something that nearly brings him to tears.

The minister talks about commitment, about lifelong devotion, about a love renewed, which Alex thinks is crazy, because as much as he is painfully aware he screwed up badly in their marriage, as much as sometimes their marriage has sucked, there has never been a time where he didn't love Eliza. The love didn't need renewing. It was always there. He just didn't show it when he should have.

He barely remembers what was said after that as he clasps her hands in his and promises himself to her, as he has done before, as he would do a thousand times over.

His wife.

He thinks the minister says he can kiss his bride but he can't really seem to care as he leans in and pulls her to him, kisses her with fervor, hopes she can hear what he's trying to say to her without words.

She rests her forehead against his and he tells her how lucky they are to be alive right now.

She knows.

(He thinks he catches a wistful look in Laurens' eyes, but can't be sure)

For the next four days, he brings his children all over St. Croix, showing them where he grew up, bringing them to where he once lived. They once present him with a wreath of flowers and ask to lay it on his mother's grave.

The world seems absurdly quiet when they fly back, but he trusts his friends to care for them.

He and Eliza explore the island together. He takes her to his old home and thinks his mother would have liked her. They go snorkeling, they ride horses on the beach, they don't leave their resort some days. He thinks he could stay here forever.

And on he and Eliza's last night, they lie on the beach, the waves lapping at their feet, her hand tucked into his.

He sighs. "We have to go home tomorrow."

"Mmm. Don't remind me," she groans.

He pulls her up to lie on him, taking in her soft smile, the spiked ends of her short hair, the rosiness of her cheeks against the paleness of her skin.

God, he loves his wife.

He runs his finger down the scar on her chest, sees her cheeks redden with embarrassment.

He presses his lips to her forehead. It's warm. He hopes it's because of the still pressing heat.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asks. That small shred of worry. He worries it will never leave.

She smiles reassuringly. Her hand drifts to smooth the worry lines in his forehead.

"You can stop worrying, Alexander. There's no worrying here."

For once in his life, he accepts her words. He allows himself to close his eyes and let her hand pass over his face, to his cheeks, his forehead, his lips.

They don't worry here. There is nobody and nothing else here, just her.

Tomorrow they will go back and the future is one big question mark. Will they be able to get Angelica back in school, will John be okay transitioning into the middle and high school, will Alex Jr. finally be able to feel like he doesn't need to shield his mother from everything?

Yes, those questions still exist. They still loom over their future.

But they are not important just now.

Just now, he presses his Eliza closer to him.

Just now, he lifts his face so his lips meet hers and the world falls away.

Just now, it is him and her and they are lucky to be alive.

 **A sky that's bright and blue.** **  
** **And some things will never end.** **  
** **The thrill of our magic ride.** **  
** **The love that I feel inside for you.** ****

 **We'll climb high beyond the break of day.** **  
** **Sleep on stardust, and dine on bits of moon** ****

 **You and I will find the Milky Way. We'll be mad, and explore.** **  
** **We'll recline a loft upon the breeze.** **  
** **Dart about sail on wit with ease.** **  
** **Pass the days doing only as we please, that's what living is for.**


	9. it's not easy

**Fast updates, yo! I feel like this was cheating because I do tend to write ideas as they come to me so most of this chapter was written well in advance. It's a bit of a filler chapter, one of my "boring" ones, but I had to get them to say some of this stuff.**

 **Also, the angst makes a reappearance really quickly here. Just FYI.**

 **Somebody, crowd me with love,** **  
** **Somebody, force me to care,** **  
** **Somebody, make me come through,** **  
** **I'll always be there,** **  
** **As frightened as you,** **  
** **To help us survive**

Again, it starts with that damn cough syrup bottle.

Or rather, another that shows up in their cabinet.

And the time Alexander uncharacteristically wakes up in the middle of the night and hears it.

Life is amazing for weeks after they get back.

Well, not amazing, but like he said, he is learning to be grateful for small things.

He tries to get Angelica back to school but they speak to the rehab program, learn that she's still in treatment, and refuse. Some days it seems she's even getting worse.

After a particularly bad day, he takes her out, buys her a few slices of watermelon, her favorite.

Then he Google's and finds an aviary nearby. He takes her to look at the parakeets. She loves birds, she always has.

It works.

Well, it works for a day.

Then she has her worst breakdown so far.

He knows without anyone telling him that if they keep going like this, they will have to switch her to inpatient therapy, and he can't let that happen. Illness will not take his daughter _and_ his wife.

At least she is being taken care of. He can't help the way his mind flips like a ping-pong ball between all the crises in his life nowadays.

The fact that his daughter having a mental breakdown is not the most pressing thing in his life is rather a sad statement, he realizes.

No, the most pressing thing in his life right now is a bottle of cough syrup. And waking up in the middle of the night to hear it.

His wife is in the bathroom.

He's not awake, not fully, until he hears it.

He hears her cough until she retches.

He hears the gasps for air, the tap running as she frantically tries to soothe her lungs enough to take in a full breath.

And then the very clear feeling of his heart dropping to his stomach.

She comes back to bed a few moments later, and he pretends to be asleep. He's not. He doesn't sleep for days after that.

He watches her the next few days, and for the first time he sees all the times she excused herself, all the stained tissues she has hidden. How she always seems to have a glass of water with her.

And that oh-so familiar feeling that has made itself scarce for so long creeps back in. That numbing edge of fear.

When she comes to bed three days after he heard her, he is already waiting, turning something over in his hands.

Eliza slips off her robe and goes to snuggle into him, but he turns away, his face set. She looks at him quizzically and he reveals the now half-empty bottle of that goddamned liquid.

"When were you going to tell me about this?" he whispers.

She tries a placating smile.

"Alexander, people do get coughs."

"Really?" and he is powerless to stop the anger that creeps into his voice. He doesn't even know who he's angry at.

Maybe Eliza, or maybe the doctors or maybe that vindictive son of a bitch who calls himself God.

"Do most people have coughs that last almost a full bottle of cough syrup after lung cancer? Do they conveniently forget to tell their husbands?"

She sighs, turns away from him. Her back is hunched, making her body as small as possible.

"You were so happy, Alexander. I couldn't take that away from you. And it may be just a cough. Really."

The childlike hope in her voice knocks the wind out of him.

"Have you thrown up? Even thrown up blood?"

Her lack of response is all the answer he needs.

His whole body feels ten times heavier, his mind racing, even the happy memories carry a black tint now.

He pulls her into his arms, surprised when she comes willingly. He lays her on top of his chest, strokes the hair that had just started to get long again.

"We'll go see the doctor tomorrow," he whispers, hating the words as they come out.

His only response is a cough.

It's back.

The doctor's face says it all.

This time, they don't cry.

That's worse. Alexander almost wishes for tears.

The doctor tells them that relapses are often harder to cure, that the cancer is no longer localized.

And again, they go into the fray of chemo. Only this time, the chemo is stronger, the doctors admit. And it will hit her hard. They give few details. They skirt around the big questions. They demur and tell Alexander and Eliza that they just don't know how her body will react.

They go home.

They don't tell the children.

Not yet.

The next day, she sends her husband to work.

Rather, she _insists_ he go to work, knowing full well he'll be too distracted to do anything. She needs him out of the house for a little bit. She needs to talk to someone but she cannot talk to him.

She pulls out her phone when he'd been gone close to an hour and find the contact folder marked "cancer buddies".

In her last days at the oncology center, Eliza had been thankful to be done with treatment, but sad to say goodbye to someone who had become one of her closest friends.

And now she was going back.

And it's not like Eliza doesn't know what relapses and different courses of treatment mean. She'd heard the doctors, she used Google, she knew.

But it was all so clinical, so impersonal.

Tia's number is the first on the list.

She knew her friend had finished up her course of treatment last week, so she was likely at home.

Eliza's polite nature warred against the need to call her, to talk to her, to ask her for advice.

She hit the contact number before she could talk herself out of it.

"Hello?" the voice was strong and confident, even on the phone. Eliza could hear the sounds of children playing in the background.

"Tia?" she manages to force out.

"Eliza? Oh, honey it's been so long! How are you?"

"I…" Suddenly the words seem to escape her. She stammers for a moment.

"Eliza? Are you okay?

If she tells Tia, she admits it to herself. She doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Maybe it's neither. Maybe both.

"It's back." It comes on an exhale, two words but she knows Tia will know what it means.

There's silence on the phone for long moments, and then the words "I'll be there in 20 minutes."

Nineteen minutes later, Eliza is greeted with a long hug, and a face filled with pity. But pity is a different expression when it comes from someone like Tia, someone who knows exactly what this means.

She is led through her own house, to the couch where her friend sits and takes both of Eliza's hands in hers.

"What do you need? Tell me what I can do."

Eliza swallows the lump in her throat. She needs this and can't hear it at the same time.

The words force themselves out.

"I need you to tell me. I know you've….I don't know….and Alex doesn't know either, and he's so scared, he won't tell me but…."

She sighs, weary from head to toe.

"This is a relapse. I need you to tell me what I'm in for with this new treatment."

Tia sighs. Eliza can see that she doesn't want to say this as much as Eliza doesn't want to hear it.

But people like them, they aren't given the luxury of deciding what they want.

"This is tough stuff, sweetie. They'll give you meds, but it won't really help. Feels the same going in but…the old chemo, it would just knock you down for a bit. This stuff will blast you to the ground and keep you there. Alex will have to help you with everything. You'll be bedridden mostly. You will be at home sometimes, but this stuff will keep you in the hospital more. Expect mouth sores. Severe nausea. Cramps."

A cold knot of fear winds itself into Eliza's stomach, furls through her intestines, clenches around her heart.

"Will it….will it work?"

"I don't know, love. They don't know either. It's just better than the alternative. But it won't feel like that during."

"I don't know how to tell the kids," she whispers. "How to tell Alex. He'll worry, he'll make himself sick with worry. Alex Jr., he's too much like his father, he'll take on too much…"

She feels the woman squeeze her hands.

"One step at a time. Do you want me to tell Alex for you?"

She nods. Yes. She's not sure she could get through telling him.

She's there when Alex gets back. He kept himself away through the morning, but he can only stare at a blank screen so long.

Eliza's face as she heard the doctors is seared into his mind.

 _Why_?

He's finding that anger is his predominant emotion these days.

Sometimes, it's all he can feel.

He's learning it's normal, but it makes it no easier. Nor does it abate the overwhelming feeling of guilt.

He refuses to break in front of her.

But he was supposed to protect her.

And he failed.

He adds that to his pile, _mountain_ of failures.

Tia leads him from his wife as soon as he gets home. She leads him into his study, sits him down, talks to him in a way that feels oddly familiar for someone he barely knows.

"Alex," she gives him a sad smile.

Remember how he only feels anger? Anger doesn't leave room for niceties.

"Eliza's cancer is back. It's bad."

"I heard," she murmurs, her hand finding its way to his arm. "I'm sorry."

"Tell that to her. Isn't me who has to go through this," he huffs. Anger is all he has right now.

She regards him with kind, knowing eyes.

"No, it's not you who has to go through the chemo. But it's you who has to watch. It's you who has to explain it to your children. Sometimes that's worse."

His head shakes vigorously. "It's not. It can't be. I don't _deserve_ _…_ _._ I don't deserve to complain."

"That's not true."

"It _is._ I have no idea what she's going through. And she'll barely talk to me. Won't even look at me."

Tia hums. "She's angry. You're angry."

It's not an accusation. More of an observation, said in such a mild tone that it only stokes Alexander's anger more.

"But she's _allowed_ to be angry."

"So are you, Alexander, no matter how much you think you're not."

He shakes his head like a six year old.

"No. Go talk her through this. I'll be fine. I _am_ fine. I'm dealing."

She scoffs. He has to admire her direct approach.

"You're not fine. None of you are fine. And you're sure as shit not dealing."

"Who the fuck are you to tell me what I am?" he hisses.

Anger also kills polite, apparently.

"You don't know me. You have no idea how I feel."

"I have a rough idea."

"Bullshit," he spits. "Don't come in her and tell me how to react. You have no idea what's going on in my head."

"Maybe not," she admits. "But I know what your next few months are going to be like. And you need to know too."

He shakes his head again.

"She's going to get really sick, Alex. She's not going to be the Eliza you know. And you should be prepared for that. She'll be bedridden, mostly. Throw up constantly. She'll be tired. Probably have mood swings. She may be in pain."

His head shakes. "Stop it."

"You need to hear this, Alex. You need to face it. You need to face it together."

Tia stands in front of him, laying one hand on each shoulder.

"Eliza has cancer, Alexander. She's going through a relapse. It's tough stuff, definitely. But she's not the only one going through something. Going through chemo is awful, and I speak from experience, but watching the person you love go through it is awful too. And you _are_ allowed to feel like that. You are allowed to feel anger. You're allowed to feel sadness. You're allowed to feel an entire mix of emotions. And most importantly, you're allowed to talk about what you're feeling."

She hooks a finger under his chin and lifts his face to meet hers.

"You're even allowed to cry," she whispers. He wonders how she knows exactly what his biggest fears are.

"No, I can't."

His voice is very small, like a child's.

"Why not?"

"Because," he feels the moisture gather around his eyes and frantically blinks it back.

"Because if I start crying, I don't think I'll ever stop. And I need to be strong for her."

She gazes at him kindly for a moment.

"Okay then. But you need to cry. You can't keep this inside, Alex. It'll eat you alive. So right now, right here, you need to let it out. And you're allowed to be angry and sad and confused and a hundred other emotions. But you need to let it out."

His mind is screaming at him to stop, to control himself, to get himself together and press forward, like always. But that beast of fear and dread that has always been festering in his stomach, it won't let him go.

So for once, he allows his mind to wander to the worst scenario he can imagine. He allows himself to see it.

He allows himself to picture his Eliza, his better angel, sick. Sicker than she's ever been.

He pictures her lying in bed all day, shaking with pain.

Or at the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator.

Or vomiting until she passed out.

There is even a fuzzy image of the two of them in a wheelchair, her seated on his lap, his hand slowly turning the wheel while her emaciated form lies limply against him.

All of which is better than the horrible image of her not being there at all. Which is something that he pictures.

The bed, one side empty.

Never to be filled again.

And really, that's all it takes.

His shoulders shake.

He failed.

She's sick.

He's supposed to protect her.

It's back.

It's bad.

He failed.

Tia pulls him into her arms, lets him sob it out on her shoulder. His sobs are great, heaving cries that he has no control over.

He really can't remember if he says anything but he hears his wife's name uttered, gasps of "my Eliza, not my Eliza, no" muffled against Tia's expensive dress.

Her hands run soothing circles down his back, but he cannot be soothed. He cannot be controlled.

No, he cannot control this.

 **I've never been this bare**

 **I've never felt so scared**

 **I know people may be disappointed that Alex can't fall apart in front of Eliza, but I do think that would be who he was. He had to carry the weight so he wouldn't put more on her. Luckily, Tia's not buying it.**

 **I love Tia, tbh. I didn't technically create her, but I love her.**

 **Also, fun fact: after Angelica's breakdown, Alexander tried everything to help her get better. He showered her with attention and everything he could think of that might help, including, yes, watermelon and birds because "she was fond of birds". Sadly, it didn't work and she only got worse.**

 **Another fun fact! Alexander Hamilton did refer to Eliza as his better angel.** **Gross sobs** **.**


	10. what are words

GUYS GUYS GUYS I WENT TO NEW YORK AND I MET ANTHONY RAMOS. LITERALLY I TOOK A PICTURE AND HIS GLORIOUS HAIR WAS TOUCHING ME. AND HE TOOK HIS HAIR DOWN AND PUT IT UP A FEW TIMES AND IT WAS BASICALLY PORN.

Anyway. Moving on. Welcome back to the angst! Sorry it's been so long, I didn't get to write in NYC.

 **All of the things that I want to say  
Just aren't coming out right  
I'm tripping on words, you got my head spinning  
I don't know where to go from here**

Tia's not wrong.

Alexander thinks, deep down, both of them held on to the vain hope of her being wrong.

 _(****)_

He goes with her to the first chemo treatment, again.

Walking back into that building is surreal. Crazy as it sounds, it feels like there is someone laughing at them from the shadows.

 _Stupid Hamilton. He thought he was in the clear. Thought his life could return to normal._

Tia was right on so many things. The chemo looked the same, going in. In fact, everything looked the same. Same room, same chairs, same old magazines.

They cover Eliza with a blanket as the chemo drips in.

Alexander forces his mind to go blank, to not imagine all the outcomes of this _relapse_. Tries not to picture the doctors' somber faces when they told them that a relapse was harder to cure.

Tried not to picture Alex Jr. going up to his room and not coming out for the rest of the night when he was told the news.

Especially tries not to picture the muffled sobs he heard from the room and how his son would not allow himself to be comforted.

He was trying to be strong for his mother.

They are too much alike, Alexander knows.

When he finally did come out of his room, he had taken it upon himself to guide his siblings through the next week. He read with William, he played in the pool with Elizabeth, he took James to soccer and stayed for the game.

Alex doesn't honestly think he could be prouder of his children.

They are everything he wishes he could be.

He can't even protect his own wife.

 _(****)_

He feels Eliza take his hand and squeeze.

During the first round of chemo, he pretended that he could protect her from this. They stuck together because they thought they knew what they were in for.

They know better now.

She's never felt so far away from him, not since the Reynolds debacle.

 _(****)_

She's done in three hours, and they go home.

Life moved on outside the oncology building, insane as it sounded.

He's not even sure he can pain an accurate picture.

Eliza is fine at first. Like last time.

But then the shakes start, to the point where she can barely stand up.

She could be doing something so simple as picking up a cup, and she would drop it, only to have it shatter all over the floor, and step on it, cutting her foot because she couldn't control her limbs.

She sits as he dresses the wound with a proud, stoic expression, but her eyes glisten with tears.

Another time, out in public, the children have to hold her up.

And the vomiting. It's all the time, everywhere. Alex has started carrying plastic bags with him. Sometimes she will throw up so violently that her entire body will move.

Her body is weak, often too weak to live outside of her bed. And sometimes her bed is not enough.

She spends time in the hospital. Lots of time, when she has vomited until she passed out, or began gasping for air.

Her body becomes frightfully thin because the chemo affects her digestive tract and gives her horrible mouth sores.

She can barely drink a glass of water.

That put her back in the hospital as well, for dehydration.

And it lasted for months.

She's scheduled for three solid months of chemo but two months in, Alex doesn't know how much of this he can survive.

Selfish, he knows, but living like this is hurting all of them.

 _(****)_

Eliza drops James, Alex Jr. and John (who had started in the middle school) off on one of the rare days she is able to and he knows she feels the stares and whispers of their teenage friends. Alexander cringes, fully anticipating the boys asking their mom to stay away from now on, knowing how that would break Eliza's heart.

He is more than a little surprised to get a call later in the day from the school, telling him to pick up his three boys, as they've been caught fighting. Despite his own reputation, the boys have never been prone to fighting, particularly not his namesake. He is suitably angry when he pulls up to the school, and demands to know what happened.

The principal tells him that they ganged up on two boys, and were found sitting on top of them, punching repeatedly.

When he asks the boys why, they fall silent. With prodding, the boldest, John, admits.

"They were saying shit about mom," he mumbles.

The principal gasps at the expression from his eleven year old, and lays into them hard, for the fighting and the language. They are suspended for one day.

He asks them what the boys said, wanting to know and yet not wanting to at the same time.

He gets only mumbles out of his sons, but finally digs out that the boys his sons hit were making fun of their family for "getting what was coming to them", as well as comments about Eliza "looking like she'll die tomorrow" (the boys had to force the word "die" out). They also reported nonsensical comments about how Eliza was the "stupid cancer bitch that stuck by her asshole cheating husband."

He sees red, and stops driving for a moment to rest his head against the steering wheel and quell the urge to go beat up two 15 year old boys.

He looks at his sons. "Are you sorry?"

They look at each other, look back at him and shake their heads.

"As an adult, I am obliged to tell you that violence is never the answer, and you should be ashamed. As your father…."

He looks at his sons and holds out his hand.

Grins broke out as his three oldest sons slapped his hand in a high five.

"Okay, you get a free day off school. Ice cream?"

 _(****)_

Remember how Alex said Eliza felt miles away from him?

That went on for months too.

It was hard to feel close to your wife when your most significant interactions were dropping her off at chemo and rubbing her back while she vomits.

He's trying, though.

He does all he can to make her life easier.

He picks up around the house, he collects her medication, he attempts cook.

She barely notices, it seems.

And he's exhausted.

He's loathe to blame her, though. As if she wasn't going through enough.

Eliza is angry, now.

She's angry most of the time and he doesn't want to add to it, so he does whatever he can not to.

But as someone who had a fair bit of experience with holding in anger, he should have expected it to boil over.

As it turns out, it boils over when he gets home late one night and doesn't unload the dishwasher.

She waits approximately four seconds before laying into him.

"I am too tired for this, Alex. I need some help around here."

"I _am_. God, I unload the damn thing every night. I do help."

"It's after chemo, Alex. You know I have no energy, and they are _your_ dishes. I can't do everything."

"I'm trying, Eliza. I really am."

"I am trying to deal with this, and it's enough already…"

"I get that, I really do. I understand what you're…."

 _That's as far as he gets before the temperature finally boils over._

"No. Don't tell me that, Alexander," she spits out his name. "Don't give me that you know what it feels like speech, because you really don't. You stand there and you fuss over everything I do, and you hold my hair back and you give me my meds. That's _all_ you do. What part of that lets you know what this is like?"

He opens his mouth to speak, always so verbose, but she is there first.

"No, don't even talk to me about this. Come back and talk to me when you've literally felt poison going through your veins. Come and talk to me when you have thrown up everything inside your body and you are still being forced to eat. Or when you struggle to drink a sip of water around the sores in your mouth. Or when your children, who you used to take _care_ of, have to come visit you in bed because you're too useless to move. Or my favorite, trying to go to sleep, not knowing if you'll wake up in the hospital with a tube down your throat. Don't even try to talk to me, Alex, until you know what that's like."

She has barely even registered the words, anger filling every part of her, anger that she has held onto for so long.

Is it even about Alexander?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. She just looks at her life and is so _furious_ because no part of this is fair and she's tired of it. She's tired of being the one who smiles and takes it.

When she looks back at her husband, she finally realizes what she's said to him. His entire expression screams defeat. Except his shoulders.

His head is bowed, but his shoulders are tense.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

She feels a bit of the fight drain from her as she looks at her husband, but then his gaze snaps up to meet hers and his eyes are glittering with the same anger she's sure hers hold.

"You're right," he hisses. "I don't know what you're going through. I have no idea. I fuss over you, I hold your hair back, I give you your damn medicines, because that's my job. I have no way of knowing what this is like for you. I can't. Because I can't help with this. I can't take this from you."

His eyes are filled with tears and suddenly she knows, as much as she has been holding her anger back, he has been holding his.

"I am your _husband_ , Eliza. I failed at that so many times, but my job was to protect you. And I can't. I can't protect you from this. I can't take this away from you. I can't make it better. So, yeah. I hold your hair and I give you your medicines, because that's fucking all I _can_ do. And yeah, I don't know what it's like to go through this, but I can assure you it's not any better to watch the person you love fade away in front of you. You think waking up in the hospital is traumatic for you? I can assure you, coming to bed and finding you barely breathing is not much better. So yeah, don't worry. I won't talk you about it anymore. You get your wish. I'll stay away."

Then the only sound is that of the slamming door.

 _You're angry. She's angry._

Yes, Tia had been right about so much.

He'd rather run away then let her see him cry.

She didn't understand, he thinks. She just didn't get it. That night, when he had slid into bed, he had been banking on a grand total of about four hours of sleep. That was on the heels of the two hours it took to get William and Elizabeth down after a long tantrum about nothing in particular. He nudged Eliza's feet with his, asked her how she felt. It was a cursory ask, he knew she felt terrible, he knew she would tell him she felt fine.

But she didn't respond.

So he nudges her again, but she still doesn't respond. He reaches out and slings an arm around her and that's when he feels it.

Her chest isn't moving.

Her eyes are closed, her skin is pale, and he actually feels his heart stop.

"Eliza!" He shakes her. Nothing.

Someone is screaming to call an ambulance.

He'll realize later that it's him.

It finally occurs to him to lay his ear by her lips and he thanks every god, diety, and anyone in any remote position of authority (looking back, he will remember thanking Jefferson) when he hears faint breath coming from her lips.

The ambulance is called and on its way. He doesn't need to say their address anymore. He knows what doctor to ask for.

He holds her hand and rubs his thumb back and forth over the thin skin while he waits, begging her under his breath to keep breathing.

 _Stay alive._

And now the hospital is their second home, and she just doesn't understand.

How can she?

He doesn't really understand himself.

They don't speak that night.

Nor the next day, when they go for a progress check-up and the chemo that is raining down hell on their family is not shrinking the cancer.

They don't even speak the day after that, when Tia doesn't answer Eliza's call.

 **Restless hearts** **  
** **Sleep alone tonight** **  
** **Sending all my love** **  
** **Along the wire**

Hoo boy, more angst. Yay! I know that yelling at Alex does seem unlike Eliza, but honestly, cancer is tough shit, and it can rip families and couples apart.


	11. it don't make sense

**Did you ever hear her laugh?** **  
** **When she laughed, you swore you'd never cry again.** **  
** **Did you ever see her smile?** **  
** **Her smile was like a glass of lemonade.** **  
** **And she said funny things,** **  
** **And she wore pretty dresses,** **  
** **And she liked to see the pictures at the VFW Hall,** **  
** **And she loved ridin' swings,** **  
** **And she liked cotton candy,** **  
** **But I think she liked the pictures best of all:**

Tia is the happiest person Eliza knows.

Her smiling face is a constant in the chemo room, one that is always very needed. Tia came into the cancer center dressed like a celebrity every time. Skirts, pressed blouses, and a flawlessly made up face. Every time Eliza saw her, she looked perfect, but for the scarf around her bald head and her thin limbs.

She saw the way other women looked at Tia sometimes. They wondered why put all this effort in while they all went home afterwards and did the same thing: sleep or sweat or vomit.

Eliza knew Tia knew this too, yet she was never discouraged.

Stage four cancer and always flawlessly presented with a smile.

She had once told Tia she was her "cancer idol", and the woman had laughed and squeezed Eliza in a hug.

"Honey, you don't need any of this to look beautiful," she had said.

In the chemo room, they would swap stories about their children, exchange pictures and anecdotes. She even told Tia about Angelica.

"That's a lot of weight to put on some very young shoulders," her friend had sighed.

"You are an incredible mother, Eliza. You know what your child needs. Fight for her, but don't be her therapist. Be her mother."

Simple as the words were, she had found it incredibly helpful. She had been vigilant with the doctors, but at the end of the day, she was her child's mother, and her job was not to "shrink" her daughter, as Alex would say, but to be there for her.

It worked. And more than that, it took some of the crushing weight off Eliza's shoulders.

She would tell Alex to do the same, but it was in her husband's nature to carry as much weight as possible, and to blame himself for things like Angie's illness, things not remotely his fault.

Eliza had once asked Tia where _her_ husband was (her ring finger was adorned with a simple band, and she saw her consistently texting someone she guessed was a husband).

Her friend had smiled a smile tinged with sadness, and told her that he didn't handle this place all that well.

"Neither does Alexander," Eliza admitted.

Her friend had laughed. "You should have seen him on your first day, hon. He was standing over you like a guard dog."

Eliza had offered, that day, to be there whenever Tia needed someone, but she knew full well that Tia would never take her up on that.

Tia was the strongest person Eliza knew.

So when she doesn't answer Eliza's call, she doesn't worry.

But three days later, she is starting to grow concerned.

So on one of her treatments, she asks about Tia. Tia was done treatment, she knew, but she was still in maintenance for stage 4 cancer, so they had to have some idea where she was.

The first nurse she asked was new, and refused to tell her.

Then she asked Martha, who still received chemo with her.

The look on Martha's face made Eliza's heart drop to her stomach.

In the hospital, she was told. No details were forthcoming, but that she unexpectedly had to be rushed to the hospital and it sounded bad.

Eliza marks the very first day off from chemo that she has and drives to the hospital.

She calls Alex on the way. Things between them aren't good, haven't been good since their fight a few days earlier, but she's loathe to give him more reasons to worry.

So she tells him that she's going to visit a friend at the hospital. Simple truth, and doesn't give any more details.

Still at work, he sounds frazzled and stressed.

"Sorry, Betsey. I'm swept off my feet today. Jefferson is being an asshole, what else is new; Burr has been out the last few days, miracle of miracles, and Madison's on my ass. Again. But do you…do you want me to come –"

"No," she says firmly. "I'm fine."

They both feel the unspoken implications in that phrase, but neither says anything.

"Do you need someone to drive you?"

It's an olive branch, she knows, but she refuses to accept it, though she's not even sure who or what she's angry at.

"There's a shuttle from here. Don't worry."

She gives the hospital clerk her name and Tia's name and tells her that Tia is a friend. The nurse gives no protest, just lists off a floor and a room.

Fifth floor, room 543, she says. Eliza winds her way slowly through the halls, checking the names scribbled on the doors.

"I'm having them make me a gold plated one," she remembers Tia telling her. "If I have to spend this much time in that place, may as well do it in style."

Room 543 looks the same as all the others, with one exception. There are people filing in and out of it, and the looks on their faces nearly stop Eliza's heart. Doctors and nurses file in and out with somber, sad expressions. She catches a flash of black curls and nearly runs into a young woman, maybe 20 years old.

"Excuse me," she hesitates. "Is this Tia's room?"

The young woman's eyes are full of tears as she looks at Eliza.

"How do you know my mother?" she asks.

"We were…I mean, I see her every day," Eliza stutters. "At the chemo center."

Recognition dawns in the girl's eyes. "Are you Eliza?"

She nods.

The young woman's face smooths into a sad smile.

"Come in and see her. She'll be happy you're here. I'll take my dad out so you guys can talk."

"Thank you," Eliza gives her a smile she hopes doesn't shake. "I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Everyone calls me Theo. Helps differentiate from my mom."

They go to the door, and Eliza takes in the (non gold-plated) name scrawled on the door.

Theodosia Provost Burr.

"Tia".

 **((((((~~~~~))))))**

Whatever she expected, she is not prepared for the sight that greets her.

Tia is nearly unrecognizable. Her wig is off, her skin is pale and her fingers shake.

She's connected to so many tubes and wires that Eliza can't distinguish a single one. An oxygen mask covers her face as she rattles shaky breaths in and out.

Yet when she sees Eliza, she smiles and Eliza catches a trace of her beautiful friend.

And by her bedside sits Aaron Burr, looking like she's never seen him.

He holds one of Tia's hands in his; his eyes are red-rimmed and swollen.

He clutches Tia's hand like Alexander clutches hers. As if they could be gone any moment, as his touch is anchoring Tia to earth.

Theo sits beside her father, exchanges some quiet words with him. The young woman slips her arm into Burr's and supports him to stand.

He barely looks at Eliza as he makes his way out, only gives a general nod in her direction.

And then they are alone; the only sounds are the beeping of the heart monitor.

Eliza is completely at a loss.

Everything about this room was white, sterile and somber. No colors, no joy, no life.

 _Is this what it looks like_ , she wonders. _When you're….dying?_

Fear shoots through her veins, ice cold. She feels her whole body tense.

Tia lifts the mask gingerly off her face, and weakly beckons to the chair Burr has vacated.

"Eliza, honey. I'm glad you came."

Eliza sits gingerly, her back ramrod straight.

Tia's voice is rough and scratched, so soft that Eliza has to lean forward to hear her.

"Tia…what…what happened?"

Her friend regards her with a soft gaze.

"Life happened, hon. Or more specifically, life happened in the form of a heart attack."

"But…you were done treatment."

Her brain refuses to comprehend this. Her vivacious friend, the one that made so many parts of cancer bearable, lies in a hospital bed, all the life sucked from her.

"For the time being, I was done." Tia smiles sadly.

"But that chemo, it weakened everything. Heart just couldn't keep up. And once that put me in here, the MRI showed that the cancer has spread everywhere."

"So…how are they treating you?" Eliza knows the answer. She knows, but she doesn't want to hear it.

Tia was never scared of anything, though.

"They're not. This is it for me, Eliza."

Another thing Eliza's brain refuses to comprehend.

 _Were the doctors just giving up? Weren't they supposed to heal?_

Tia reaches out and takes her hand.

"Sometimes we put up a good fight, babe, but some things aren't meant to be."

"So you're just _giving up?_ " The edge of anger creeps in without her realizing it, but Tia doesn't look offended.

"Not giving up. More like accepting the way things are."

" _How?"_ That one comes out soaked with unshed tears.

Tia knew the fear that lay beneath. She always did.

"Eliza," Tia murmurs soothingly. "It's okay. I'm going to be okay."

"But – "

"No, really. You can't see it now, but things will be okay."

Tia exhales heavily, pressing her morphine pump with a wince.

When she turns back to Eliza, her eyelids droop, but her face is resolute.

"Now, listen to me, because this is important: you have to keep fighting. Don't look at me here and think this is your future. You aren't done, Eliza. You have to keep fighting."

Tia pats the bed and Eliza sits down and helps her friend readjust her oxygen mask.

"Now, tell me the latest. How's Angie? Is Martha's husband still the great mystery of the chemo room? Catch me up, while my happy juice works its magic."

So she does. Eliza sits and talks for long after Tia has fallen asleep.

And once she rises, Eliza stumbles out of the room and grabs for her phone.

She needs him now. She needs him here.

She manages to dial the number through shaky fingers.

Thanks to caller ID, he picks up on the second ring.

"Alexander," the words come out strangled, choked with tears. "I need you."

He's there in 10 minutes.

 **((((((~~~~~))))))**

She's leaning against the ER door when he comes in.

He takes one look at her and sweeps her into his arms.

And then, the tears fall.

To say he is shocked with she tells him who Tia is, who her husband is, would be like saying the sky is a blueish color.

His face pales and he slaps a hand to his face.

" _Burr?"_ he hisses. "How come he never said anything?

Eliza shrugs from her position on his lap, with her back against his chest and her head tucked between his shoulder and neck.

"Sometimes you don't know how to say these things. And I think he didn't want you to feel sorry for him."

Alex accepts this with a nod, but Eliza can see the wheels turning in his head.

He is uncharacteristically quiet, but she knows he is hoping not to run into Burr.

What could he even say?

 **((((((~~~~~))))))**

Of course, he does. The universe and its fucked up sense of balance.

Only Burr doesn't look like Burr when Eliza leads him to Tia's room.

His shoulders are hunched, his head is bowed, he doesn't look up but he looks like he has aged years in the few days since Alex has last saw him.

Alex clears his throat uncomfortably.

"Mr. Burr."

"Alexander." His voice is soft and wet.

"I'm…I'm sorry, Burr."

A nod is his only reply.

Eliza sits with Tia, strokes her hair, and talks to her, while their husbands sit at the far end of the room.

Burr never once looks at Alexander.

So when he does speak, Alex nearly jumps out of his skin.

"Tell me about St. Croix. Was it beautiful?"

His voice carries a longing in it. Alex can't figure out why, but he gives Burr all the details he can remember, no matter how small.

"Sounds nice," Burr mumbles. "I'm glad you could get there."

Again, Alex can't define what it is, but there is _something_ about his tone that makes it click into place.

"The donation," The words burst forth before he can stop them. "The donation so that we could go to St. Croix. That was you, wasn't it?"

Burr's head is bowed, he doesn't move.

"Not the whole thing. Two big ones, I was only one of them."

"But…why?"

Burr gives a wry chuckle, shakes his head. "Do you know how little time we have with those we love, Hamilton? You should. You, of all people, should. You need to take advantage of every moment."

"But you hate me."

Burr shakes his head, his eyes finally meeting Alexander's. The brown orbs are shining with unshed tears. He looks desperate, devastated. Alex knows the look well. He has sported it more times than he cares to remember.

"You always assumed that. I never hated you. But you always thought so. After awhile, I just accepted it. Made life in the workplace easier. It was almost like it was easier for you to believe I hated you."

"But.." Suddenly, the great, verbose Alexander Hamilton has no words. He lifts his eyes to see his wife (two times over), as she softly sings a song to her friends. She is so beautiful. He loves her so much.

And Tia, Alex could see how Burr looked at her. She was Burr's Eliza. And she was fading fast.

"Thank you," he chokes out. "Thank you, Burr. Thank you so much."

Tia slips into a coma several hours later. Eliza and Alexander are still there.

He finds Aaron in the corridor, head in his hands.

He just looks so very _broken_.

How was he still alive? How did he breathe, knowing his wife would soon be gone, forever?

Alexander doesn't know what to do, but he moves automatically to sit down on the floor next to someone he used to consider his enemy.

But there are no enemies here. There is just them, united in grief.

Those who are left behind.

He lays his hand on Burr's arm and squeezes.

He doesn't say a word, but he feels the other man shake with silent sobs.

And for an indefinable amount of time, they sit there, Alex's hand resting on Burr's arm, Burr sobbing as if his heart was fracturing in his chest.

 **((((((~~~~~))))))**

They are asked to leave around midnight. They don't object. This time feels to intimate for them to intrude on. Tia hasn't moved since she fell into a coma.

Eliza takes in the sight one last time.

Her friend, usually so glamorous, lay emaciated in her small hospital bed, bald, impossibly thin, her skin yellowed and pale. Her body was too weak to move, machines performed the functions of her diseased organs.

And yet. Tia's husband sat by her bedside, humming softly to her (as Alexander had done so often for Eliza). His hand passed softly across her cheek.

Theo lay with her head on her mother's shoulder, Tia's other hand in hers.

Eliza looked at Tia, dying.

But dying surrounded by love.

Dying, knowing that she had changed the lives of so many.

Dying and knowing her legacy lived on in her husband and children.

And she _did_ know, of that, Eliza was sure.

 **((((((~~~~~))))))**

They get the call around 4am.

Her heart gave out.

Tia is gone.

The tears come hard and fast. Alex holds her, and she him.

Suddenly, whatever they were once fighting about seems so small, so petty.

Eliza curls into her husband, who has never left her side through this whole nightmare.

Reaching up, she tangles her fingers into his long hair and pulls his mouth down to meet hers.

"I'm still here," she whispers. "You're still here. How lucky we are."

 **((((((~~~~~))))))**

Tia is gone.

Forever, and that is such a hard concept to grasp.

But when Eliza pictures Tia, that last scene in the hospital room is not what she sees.

No, she sees her friend, standing and laughing, radiant and glowing. Her skin is shining and healthy, her hair is long, her curls whip in the wind.

Eliza pictures her clutching her daughter close to her, whispering to Theo words she couldn't hear but she could imagine.

Eliza pictures her cradling her husband's face in her hands, smiling at him, letting him know to _let go, let go. I'm fine, I'll be fine. I'm not gone, I'm always here_.

 **And there's no mountain too high** **  
** **No river too wide** **  
** **Sing out this song I'll be there by your side** **  
** **Storm clouds may gather** **  
** **And stars may collide** **  
** **But I love you until the end of time**

 **Oh god, I'm so sorry. I am a horrible, despicable person :P**

 **But seriously, I knew who Tia was right from the beginning. Remember how I said I didn't technically create her? Yeah. So this was always the plan. But god, even writing the chapter made me cry all the ugly tears.**

 **Please comment, call me the devil, I deserve this.** **  
**


	12. echo

**I bring you a tiny chapter that I felt needed to go in, kind of as a filler. Sorry it's taken so long, life has been mad! Though I am horribly unsatisfied with the ending, I do enjoy the scenario of this chapter. Next one should be up quicker!**

 **As always, find the ficmix here:**

 **8tracks sadie-reay / hold-me-till-it-sleeps-a-fanmix**

 **And in a burst of light that blinded every angel** **  
** **As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars** **  
** **You felt the gravity of tempered grace** **  
** **Falling into empty space** **  
** **No one there to catch you in their arms**

Tia's death brings some odd clarity to the house.

They attend her funeral.

It's nothing like she would have wanted. Tia comes from old money, though Eliza had never known. Her family insists on a traditional ceremony.

The ceremony is stifled, quiet, somber, everything Tia wasn't. Tia was wild, bold, joyful.

She would have hated this, Eliza knows, as she grips Alex's hand and tries to come to terms with the very odd feeling she has about being here.

It's a little that she is just realizing how quickly life can change, how instantaneously it can be ripped a way. And, if she's honest, a bit about how this _is_ how it might end, for her family.

A sea of people dressed in black surround the wooden casket.

Tia would have wanted bright colors and laughter, Eliza thinks.

She shifts her gaze to Theo the younger. The young woman looks absolutely miserable. Tears track down her cheeks as she slides an arm through her father's.

And her father…Aaron Burr is a different person than either of them remember.

Oh, he was always a master of the noncommittal, but this is different. He carried poise with him before, a quiet grace.

It's as if that has been ripped from him and he just simply doesn't have the strength to fight anymore.

His posture slumps, his eyes trained on the ground.

Eliza has never seen anyone who looks more like they have simply given up.

And she knew Tia, and that is the last thing Tia would want.

Alexander squeezes her hand, shaking her out of her thoughts. She squeezes back and gives him a halfhearted smile.

They've been doing much better since they heard the news about Tia.

Eliza doesn't really know why, but maybe she's learned to accept his help. Maybe he's learned how to be there for her like she needs him to. Maybe both, maybe neither.

The point is that they're in this together, and they both know that now.

If Eliza wakes up in the middle of the night vomiting, she doesn't try to hide it from him.

If Alexander is angry, or sad, or anything else, he tries to tell her.

(He still hasn't cried in front of her since she was diagnosed, though).

Her health isn't what she'd call steady, but she's hit somewhat of an even keel in managing the side effects.

They have each other. For better or worse, they are each other's someone.

But Aaron Burr? He has lost that someone, and if there's one thing about death that's so impossible to grasp, it's the permanence.

It's been a week, and the only time Eliza has seen Aaron Burr with an expression of anything other than heartbreak or misery was once, when they were visiting the house and the door swung open without a knock, followed by the sound of keys dropping and a coat being sloughed off.

Burr's face had lit, his eyes had widened, and he strained to see who was coming in.

It was Tia's sister.

And the expression on his face was one Eliza would never forget.

He thought it was her.

Because some part of this is not real to him. He hasn't let her go, Eliza knows. A piece of him still thinks she will walk through that door.

The funeral does not help matters, so Eliza searches her brain for something that will.

It actually comes to her on the car ride home.

Alexander takes no convincing to agree.

They pick Burr and Theo up the next day.

"Get in the car," she tells him gently.

And thanks to that absolute brokenness that pervades him, he doesn't object.

They take him to the beach.

Eliza has Alex stop twice so that she can vomit on the side of the road.

Burr looks like he's in physical pain as he watches.

It's a cold but sunny day as they approach Brighton beach. It's nearly empty, thanks to the time of year.

Tia always loved this place. She talked about it so often, with a longing in her voice.

She loved looking at it, but she hadn't been there since she got sick.

It's the perfect spot, Eliza thinks.

As soon as she gets out of the car, the wind whips around her, as if pulling her into a dance.

Aaron and Theo get out of the car slowly, hesitantly.

She knows they are confused as she leads them to the side of the pier, stopping once so Alexander could loop a steadying arm through hers.

They stop at the edge, so Eliza can draw something out of her pocket.

With care, she hands Burr Tia's favorite scarf, which she had found stuffed into a box of items brought home from the hospital on a visit to the Burr's home.

Burr stretches out a hand and takes the scarf.

"What is this?" he asks, lovingly passing his hands over the fabric.

Eliza smiles.

"We're going to let her go. But we're going to do it right. You know she would have hated that funeral. But this….she would have loved it here. So here, we let her go. Let the scarf go, let her fly."

Burr laces the scarf through his fingers.

"But I…"

"It's just a scarf, Aaron. Tia will never leave you," she smiles. "I promise."

"Then, why…"

"Because we have to let her go. She's free now. We need to let her be free."

After a moment, Burr gives a stiff nod.

Alexander steps up from behind her to lay a hand on Burr's arm and whisper words she can't hear into the other man's ear.

He must be of some comfort, because the man's posture relaxes just a bit.

Aaron Burr stands facing the breeze, as it picks up with a singing howl. His jacket whips in the wind.

His eyes shut, but Eliza knows it's not because of the breeze.

He's talking to her.

He feels her here.

She is here, Eliza knows. She was never gone, she will always be here.

Burr raises the scarf above his head.

Slowly, his fingers release.

The breeze curls around the scarf and soars it into the sky. Up, up, higher and higher, until it dances into the blue sky above them.

And Aaron Burr laughs.

He laughs and wraps an arm around his daughter as tears spill down his cheeks.

Burr watches the representation of his beloved wife be taken away, knowing now that she is free.

There will be no more pain for her, no more cancer, no more relapses.

Tia is gone now, forever, but the love they shared, that's still there.

The world will keep turning, without Tia. Most people will have never met her, never known her or her importance in their narrative. But they did.

Tia exists in all of them now. Cancer could never take that.

And if it takes her the same way, Eliza feels a strange comfort in knowing how life will continue around her.

The dead are never forgotten by those who love them.

Aaron Burr will love Tia till the day he dies, and is reunited with her.

Theo will remember her mother, love her mother, for the rest of her life.

She'll have her own children, maybe, and raise them as her mother raised her.

And Tia won't exist, but she'll always exist.

And that will be enough.

We can sail away tonight  
On a sea of pure moonlight  
We can navigate the stars  
To bring us back home

In a place so far away  
We'll be young  
That's how we'll stay


	13. too much for one heart

**AN: Hoo boy, it has been a minute. But these last two weeks have been nuts, with setting up my new classroom and my new house and the school year starting….yeah.**

 **Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter. I should add this disclaimer: if you are particularly religious, please know that my intention in this chapter was not to insult you or your religion. This is just a scenario that I can see playing out.**

 **Also this chapter features some angsty Lams because I love me some angsty pining John Laurens, you poor muffin.**

 **He told me Jesus loves me  
But I'm not sure I deserve it  
'Cause the faithful man that you loved  
Is nowhere to be found  
Since they took all that he believed  
And laid it in the ground**

 _Three Months Later:_

He said, what feels like forever ago, that he wasn't sure how much longer he could take this.

Well, that hadn't changed.

Tia's death provided them with a brief reprieve, so to speak, where Eliza's symptoms and treatment took a backseat to the grief of the Burr family (or what was left of it).

They are a family again, for the first time in so long, they are a family.

Invariably one or more of their children sleep in their bed every night.

Alexander's gait with the children's routine smooths, so that their household runs more calmly.

Angelica is checked into an inpatient facility.

(That one was a necessity. One day Alexander brought in James and William after a treatment session and found the room ripped apart, the therapist in a corner with their daughter, and his child who didn't recognize him or her brothers).

Eliza cries. He holds her. They know this is right, and they know they'll get through it.

Because they are a family.

But cancer has never been known to make itself scarce for long, and before he knows it, Eliza is throwing up again. And shaking, and staying in bed all day.

And coughing up blood.

She has had a peace about her since Tia's death; found it comforting in an odd way. Like she's accepted her fate, whatever it may be.

Which is why she only allows him to bring her to the doctor when she literally cannot get out of bed.

Even then, she carries a serenity to her, a grace he wishes so desperately he had.

He has no such grace.

He leaves the room when the doctor shows them the latest scans, showing the cancer's progression, everywhere.

Where he says they are moving into the territory of the T-word.

Terminal.

Eliza is calm grace.

Alexander is a raging fire.

An experimental surgery is planned.

See what they can cut out, they say. See how far along it is up close.

It's for naught and they all know it.

She does it for him and they both know it.

He stays with her in the hospital.

The nurses call him supportive and he calls them ridiculous. Not like he's four seconds away from keeling over.

Not like she's the one supporting him.

He sings to her while they put her under.

She smiles serenely at him, strokes his cheek with one thin hand.

He loves her so much and he can't let her go.

During the surgery, he can't stand to be in the waiting room. He wanders around the hospital, until he finds himself in front of an intricately carved wooden door.

The chapel.

His wife has always found comfort in her faith.

Alexander so needs that comfort now, so he slips into the hospital chapel, sits down at a pew, bows his head.

He's not even sure what to say, what to do.

He looks around. In the front, there is a cross, and a small statue of what the world knows as "God". His arms reach out; his face is soft and loving. He looks down, as a person or two kneels at the altar, by the statue's feet.

Like he expects worship.

Alexander grabs a bible from the rack in front of him and flips through it.

How does Eliza do this? How does she glean comfort from something that seems so arbitrary?

He thumbs over passages, but instead of comfort, he feels rage rising inside him.

 _Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective._

 _Let the name of the LORD be praised, both now and forevermore._

 _Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,_ _for theirs is the kingdom of heaven._

 _God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them._

 _"Surely, God will not act wickedly, And the Almighty will not pervert justice._

He looks up at the cross as the last people slip out.

Alexander Hamilton has never been shy with words. He has also never been good at handling rage, and that is all he feels right now.

"So this is justice?" he hisses at nobody. "You take my son, you break my family, and we're supposed to be grateful? We're supposed to praise you?"

He whips the book to the floor with a crash and stands.

"I cheated on my wife. Yes. I slept with a 23 year old groupie. And hey, more than once! I left my wife at home with my children and ran off with a girl who only wanted power. I sullied my married bed. I was never home."

He reaches the altar and gives a long, sarcastic bow.

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned. Actually, sinned isn't even the right word. I ripped my family apart. I rained hell down on my family. Yes, I said hell. And now, when we are finally putting ourselves back together, _this_ is how you choose to pay me back? By making my wife pay for my sins?"

He stomps onto the altar, all semblance of control lost.

"' _Good and upright is the Lord',_ who the fuck were they kidding? Is this supposed to be good? Is this supposed to be upright, you sick son of a bitch?"

He can't stop himself now, won't stop himself.

"She is nearly on a ventilator now. I get to tell my children that their mother is…." he can't even complete the sentence.

"And you call that justice? My wife suffers in pain, and what? Is that supposed to be penance?"

"I told you! I told you from the very start! If you need someone, you pick me! If you need your pound of flesh, take it from me, you self-righteous asshole!"

The tears flow freely, and he barely notices them, but the glob of spit he aims at the cross is very deliberate.

As is the slamming of the door as he leaves.

Eliza POV.

It was non-stop. The chemo, the surgery, the medicine, the pain.

She has been home for two and a half weeks now, the longest since this whole nightmare started.

She pretends she doesn't see the doctor's faces recently. She pretends she doesn't notice how somber their expressions are, how much more palliative the care.

She _does_ notice how tired Alexander is, how fragile. How he clings to her as if she is literally keeping him anchored to this world.

And she can't anymore.

She doesn't care for her children anymore, she can't, but she still curls up in the rocking chair, set up in the living room, and watches her babies. Sometimes Elizabeth joins and she gently takes her little one into sleep.

But she can't anymore.

Alex needs to rock them now.

She needs to be less important to them now.

Alex needs to take that role.

Because she can say it, where he can't.

This cancer could very possibly kill her. She could die, and it will be Alex's job to be everything to their children.

She needs to know he can do this, but he won't talk to her. He cares for her, mechanically, robotically, then runs like a skittish rabbit when she tries to start a conversation. Like he's afraid of her.

She needs him, but the children need him more.

And if this is the end, Eliza needs to know they'll be okay.

He needs to tell her that.

And their time is running out.

POV Alexander:

"James, James, slow down. No son, I can't leave work now. I've only got about another two hours of paperwork. No, I'm sorry, son, it can't wait. Well, just give her some Emetrol and put a cold cloth over her forehead and I'll…James, I know but I will be home soon, I've missed so much work and I can't….yes. Okay. I'm sorry, I wish I could get away. I'll be home as soon as I can."

He hangs up the phone with a sigh.

This day was shitting on him, and it was only 10:43.

But then, that had been life in the last few months.

He had only gone back to work for a few hours, to escape the mortuary feel of the house. The nurse was there, the maid was there, he couldn't be there.

He couldn't watch this.

He lives his life now with his heart cleaved in half, and half of it in his throat, blocking all speech and just waiting for the next bomb to drop on their lives.

So of course, this would be the day Madison gives him the speech he had clearly been working on for a long time.

His boss stands in front of him, giving Alexander no choice but to look at him.

He runs through the usual song and dance, how being a US Senator requires a great deal of commitment, how he understands how Alexander is having issues at home, but there were a great many people in line for his position. Then moves into the old refrains of how much time he had spent grooming Alex for this position, how he's not unsympathetic but he has a state to look after, how if he needs an example of devotion, to look at Jefferson.

At that, Alexander loses all semblance of decorum.

He sees Jefferson stand but he feels rooted to his chair.

"Hamilton," Madison says, his voice carrying what he probably thinks is a stern tone. "I know you have issues at home, but you are neglecting your work here. If being a US senator is too much for you –"

It's important, for the record, to note that in the last few months, Alexander Hamilton has taken aim at God, his wife's beloved God. Why, then, would he hesitate to take aim at his boss, particularly with the all-encompassing anger he feels every minute of every day?

"How long you been with your wife, Madison?" Hamilton interrupts, not looking at him.

"What?"

"Ever have anyone in your family with cancer?"

"I – "

"Yesterday I finished two different proposals and looked at three new bills. While I held my wife's hair back as she vomited, started her on two new medications, and explained to my four year old why Mommy stays in bed all day."

"My wife has lung cancer, Madison. Not a year after we lost our son. Now her days consist of vomiting and gasping for breath and being in an out of a hospital while still trying to care for our remaining six."

"I understand that, Hamilton, but if you –"

"No," Hamilton stresses. "No, don't give me that bullshit, Madison, because you really fucking _don't_ understand. You actually have no idea what it feels like to watch the center of your world fade away. You have no fucking clue what it feels like to rush your wife of over 20 years to the hospital in the middle of the night because she's turning blue and can't breathe."

"Alexander Hamilton, I am your superior. I understand you are going through something at home, but I cannot allow you to – "

"Shut _up_!" Hamilton shouts, careening out of his seat and around his desk. "You think I care that my paperwork is in late? My children are in crisis, and my wife is dying –"

And with that, something hits Hamilton, something that never has before. Or perhaps it has, but he has always pushed it to the side. It's there now, and he can practically feel Tia telling him to let it out.

"My wife," he whispers. "My Eliza. She's dying. She's going to die."

He sits down and he's barely aware of his infrequently used tear ducts suddenly working overtime in front of his greatest enemy and his boss.

So he's not really paying attention when Thomas Jefferson tells Madison to leave and not come back for long while.

Nor really, when Jefferson sidles up to his desk and points to his paperwork, along with his usual eye roll.

He sits at his desk with tears pouring down his face, and a tissue box that suddenly appears in front of him.

Jefferson stands a good few lengths away. His posture is as upright and dominating as ever, but there is an odd expression on his face.

On anyone else, it would be called pity, but Hamilton isn't sure Jefferson can even emulate that emotion, much less know what it looks like on him.

"Listen…" Jefferson hesitates. "My ride isn't coming for another two hours. And y'know, I am just so goddamn bored. You wouldn't happen to want to let me finish that paperwork?"

"What?"

"Just give me something to fucking do. Such a boring day here. Besides," Jefferson grins. "It's not like I wouldn't do a better job of it anyway."

"Jefferson…"

"Go home, Hamilton. Don't worry, I'll make the handwriting suitably messy. Throw in a misspelled word or two. They'll think it's you."

Hesitantly, the man offers a hand to Hamilton. It takes a full moment of a pregnant silence before Hamilton realizes what is happening.

Jefferson is helping him up. He's helping support him.

Jefferson didn't report it when Hamilton hit him.

Jefferson pulled Madison away from him.

Jefferson was the second donation for their wedding.

His greatest enemies are trying to support him and Hamilton finds nothing familiar about the world he's in, that horribly unjust universe where his Eliza is being slowly ripped from him and his longtime rival is pitying him.

But he leaves.

He doesn't know how to fight anymore.

So of course, on what may qualify to be the worst time of his life, he's not paying attention and he bumps into a young woman.

They both fall, and he stutters apologies, picking up her dropped purse. That's when she raises her head to look at him, and the day gets worse.

"Ms. Reynolds," he groans. Her face flushes.

"Ale….Mr. Hamilton."

Yep. The day got worse.

Don't mistake, he vividly remembers why he slept with Maria Reynolds.

As odd as it sounds, it was easy and uncomplicated.

It was sex, with someone who admired him, while he was pretending that he wasn't actively ignoring his family. It was a release with no emotional attachments. It was exactly what people should have expected from the bastard orphan immigrant.

Why _would_ he deserve someone like Eliza?

Why _wouldn't_ he ruin his life with a meaningless fling?

Things are different now, he knows. So very different, his wife needs him now and she has never needed him before.

And Maria has heard of what's happening with his family, as she awkwardly makes small talk. She asks how Eliza is doing. That, in itself, is almost laughable.

Together, they had nearly destroyed his wife's life.

He thinks back to that Alexander Hamilton, and while he feels utter disgust at him, those longings for something easy? They never really left.

The longing to feel something, he supposes. He feels just nothingness now.

Except, however, her hand stroke his arm and her breath as she leans in close to him.

He yanks away so fast he's surprised they both don't topple over again.

"What are you doing?" he hisses.

She looks surprised, but at what, he couldn't guess.

Nonetheless, she presses on, bringing herself incrementally nearer to him.

"Look, I'm sorry. Sorry for the shit your family is going through. But sometimes….everyone needs a release, Alexander. A person can't carry that much stress."

Laughably, he recalls Tia saying nearly the same thing, though he's fairly certain she didn't mean this.

Maria leans a bit further in, and this time, he doesn't pull away as her hand moves back to his arm. The other hand slips a card with a phone number into his pocket.

"You're wound up way too tight, anyone can see it. It doesn't have to mean anything. If you ever want something….uncomplicated, just give me a call."

That piece of paper stays in his pocket for two days. It's there when he wakes up with Elizabeth in the middle of the night. It's there when he takes Eliza to treatment. It's there when he hugs his sons after school.

And it's there until he finally cracks and calls John Laurens, begging him to come over right away.

He's pacing when John arrives, and despite his friend's best efforts, he cannot be corralled to he couch.

Alexander mumbles under his breath, and John catches only bits. He's stressed out; he knows John assumes it's because of Eliza.

Her condition is stressing all of them.

So when John finally stands and places a hand on either of Alexander's shoulders, he allows himself to finally stop.

"Alex," his friend says softly. "Are you okay?"

That simple question takes an eternity to answer.

He finds the first words in his mind.

"I'm a shitty person, John."

John immediately protests.

"No, you're not, Alex. You can't think like that. You're a good person, a good father, a good husband…"

And that's when that little white card makes its reappearance, on a shout of "no!"

He shoves the crumpled piece of white card out of his pocket and thrusts it at his best friend.

"Don't tell me I'm a good husband. Don't give me that bullshit."

John reads the card, and Alex sees recognition (and a bit of shame) on his face.

"Alex, you didn't – "

"No." It's an immediate reply.

Laurens shakes his head in confusion.

"You didn't do it? Didn't call her?"

"No."

"Then why do you…"

" _Because I wanted to!_ Goddamn, I knew what it did to my family last time, and I fucking almost did it again! And while my wife has fucking _cancer_ Laurens. So don't tell me I'm anything less than a shitty excuse for a person."

"Alex," his friend breathes, and draws him into a hug.

"How do you justify that, John?" Alex sighs into his shoulder.

"Love, I suppose," John replies.

Alexander lets out a scoff and pulls back.

"How the fuck is that love? How the fuck is wanting to cheat on my wife love?" 

"You love her, Alex. Love her so much that it's killing you. Love her enough to want to take all the away, so you're trying to carry it yourself, but you can't. Love comes in a lot of ways, man. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's screwed up."

The mood has taken a decidedly more serious turn.

"How do you love someone and do that to them?" Alex asks, and it's been haunting him for years. "How does love make you so screwed up that you are willing do these ridiculous things, to and for people?"

The long pause that follows is full of secrets neither of them will ever tell.

"Don't know. I guess we want it so bad that we take what we can get," John says softly. "And sometimes it fucking sucks. Sometimes you are forced to be in someone's life, but not in the capacity you want to be. Sometimes you have to watch them love someone else. And you love them _so_ much, and it hurts, but they are happy with who they're with."

Alexander is stunned, John's words finally making sense.

"Sometimes, Alexander, you can love someone but not get to be with them. And it's the worst thing, but it's better than not having them in your life at all."

"John…"

"Don't." His friend holds his hand up, as if to push Alexander away. "I'm just saying, there is also an argument to be made for holding it inside. It's better for everyone."

And that was what it was, Alex realized. The thing that John had always held back. It astounds him that John was able to carry this love inside him for over two decades, whereas all this love Alexander feels for his wife always seems to be on the brink of exploding out of him, almost pushing him to do things he knew he'd regret.

And now John Laurens is looking at him with such a light in his eyes that it almost blinds him.

"John, I…" he is truly lost for what to say. The great Alexander Hamilton, orator extraordinaire, does not know how to respond.

"John, you're my best friend, but…"

He sees the reaction immediately. The man's eyes fill with tears and a hurt so deep he can barely stand it.

"Don't, Alex." John cuts him off, shifts positions on the couch to be further away. "Don't try to explain. This was exactly what I expected, anyway."

"John, this isn't going to.."

"No, Alex. We'll be fine. I'll still be here."

The words are a relief to him, but the silence is uncomfortable as they sit beside each other, time moving slower than Alex thought it could.

"I love you," Alexander whispers. "Maybe not in that way, maybe it's not enough, but I do."

"I know." The reply is quiet. "That's been enough for years."

 **You're still mine**

 **But I can't go along**

 **Don't be sad, though I'm far away**

 **I'll be watching you**

 **This is the hour I swore I'd see**

 **I alone can tell what the end will be**


	14. skylark

**A/N…just….see the end of the chapter.**

 **And I STRONGLY recommend listening to Always/Goodnight while you read from the ficmix here:**

 **8tracks sadie-reay /hold-me-till-it-sleeps-a-fanmix**

 **I know I wasn't perfect**

 **I know my life was small**

 **I know that I pretended that I knew it all**

 **But when you tell my story**

 **And I hope somebody does**

 **Remember me as something**

 **Bigger than I was**

 **And I thought I was tough.**

Life moves in moments, moments that race by and drag on at the same time. Alex doesn't think he can truly explain it. You can't really know, not unless you've been there.

Which is odd to say, because he has the words for everything. He is never without words, written or spoken.

Eliza has teased him about it for years.

But he has nothing.

He's been thinking recently, though.

About where he is, about where he started. That bright-eyed nineteen year old he once was feels like another life, one he never lived.

That person he was before Eliza.

He doesn't recognize that person anymore.

It doesn't feel like him.

He doesn't feel like him without Eliza.

What feels like forever ago, he tried to picture his life without her.

He couldn't then.

But things are different.

 _/I'm sorry/_

 **\- I run for us all-**

Eliza doesn't leave their room. She can't. She is too weak to move. In point of fact, their room is now the de facto family room. The children spend all their time there. They sleep there. They do their homework there. A pile of toys sits in the corner for Elizabeth and William. The older boys have moved their x-box in there.

Like typical teens, they sit and play for hours.

Unlike typical teens though, they sit in the crook of their mother's arm, while one thin hand strokes their hair, and chapped lips press kisses to their cheeks.

 _Mommy had a hurt on her inside and the doctors took it out. The tube is helping the inside of her body get better._

He keeps up his new role of running the household.

He tries to fill the time.

He makes sure she's as comfortable as she can be.

He makes sure the children are cared for.

He is avoiding her.

He can't look at her.

They both know it.

So one day, she corners him.

Well, corners him as best she can from her bedbound state. He's tidying the room, tripping over game CDs, trying to put the room back in order, knowing at least two children will be sleeping in the bed with them tonight, when he hears his name called softly.

She beckons him to her, and he hesitates.

He hesitates to sit with his dying wife.

He sits gingerly, nervously,

She gives him a serene smile (that quiet grace pervades her nowadays).

 _/There's no worrying here/_

"Help me up, please," she whispers.

He shifts his arms around her and props her up on the pillows. He can see how much energy this takes out of her already, he knows she's in pain. He makes a note to talk to her new doctor about a morphine pump.

She takes his face in her hands.

Her shaking hands stroke his hair; her thumbs pass over his cheeks.

He looks at her.

His wife.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, then kicks himself mentally for the stupid question.

"Fine." They still lie to each other sometimes.

"You don't…need anything?"

She nods. "Yes, I do."

"What do you need?"

Her thumbs rest on his cheekbones, the gentle pressure of her bony fingers radiating warmth through his body.

His _wife._

 _/You need to face it together/_

'I need you to say it."

He doesn't need to ask what he means.

Remember that picture?

He can see it.

A life without Eliza.

A life as a single father, as a senator.

A life where his wife just fades away.

And that though, oh _god._ That though terrifies him more than anything he has ever experienced.

The rest of his life. Without Eliza.

The words do not reach what he feels.

"Alexander," she whispers. "You need to say it."

Life without Eliza.

"No,' he rises abruptly, paces, runs a hand through his hair. "Don't talk like that Eliza, the chemo is working. It will work."

"Maybe," she smiles. "Maybe not."

"No, it _will_. Why are you…you can't just…"

"Darling," she holds her hand out to him, guides him back to the bed, settles herself in front of him.

 _/I'm fine, baby/_

"Alexander," she whispers. "You need to say it. You need to face it."

He wipes frantically at his eyes, and shakes his head.

She lays a hand on his cheek.

"It might not work. I may die."

It's that word that does it. That word that he can't comprehend, can't handle, can't hear.

He startles so suddenly she is nearly knocked back.

"No!" he yells. "Do _not_ say that. You can't even think it, Eliza."

"Pretending it doesn't exist will not help, my love. We have to prepare."

She settles against the pillows, pulls him so he is by her side. Her fingers hold his face so he cannot start away.

"I'm sick, Alexander. And I'm tired, _so_ tired."

"You could take a nap," his voice is very small, like a child's.

She smiles, moves her fingers so they gently take his hands in hers.

"That won't help. If I die, I need to know you'll be okay."

He shakes his head again, but for a different reason.

"Alexander," she soothes. "You can't worry about me. I'll be okay. I'll have Peggy. And Philip. And my parents. But _you…_ I need to know you'll survive this. I can't do this until I know you'll be okay."

"I can't." The words are a sharp exhale. Fast. Desperate.

"You can't what, darling?"

"You must," she implores. "We have six children here who need you. You can't abandon them. You have to be strong."

"But I'm _not_ the strong one, don't you get it?!" he bursts out. "I never was. That was always you."

She feels wetness on her fingers and realizes tears are spilling from his cheeks, the first time she's seen him cry since she was diagnosed.

And after that, the floodgates open, and the sobs burst through. She can barely understand him through the heaving cries.

"Please Eliza, you don't…please don't….I need…don't leave, stay…"

She pulls his head against her chest and cards her fingers through his long hair as he sobs, their hearts breaking together. He clings to her, lying nearly on top of her.

"Please Eliza, oh _please_ , please don't…."

She strokes his hair soothingly, presses kisses to his head.

"Alex," she says into his hair. "Look around. Look at our life. Look at our children. How lucky we were to be alive right now."

He clings to her like she's his tether. She's not. She can't be.

But she's not afraid.

It's beautiful over there, she knows. Peggy waits for her, her baby boy is there.

God, she can't wait to see him again.

 **-I held a jewel in my fingers and went to sleep -**

Eliza is rushed to the hospital the next day, struggling to breathe, and is put on a ventilator.

Her husband sits by her side, holding her hand and stroking her cheek, looking decades older than his 44 years.

 _/Alex. I have cancer. /_

There's a soft knock on the door. Alex looks up, finding Eliza's new doctor in the doorway.

An imposing, six foot man, he gently takes Alex's arm and leads him out.

It's been so long, so many doctors, Alex can tell what he's going to say by the expression on his face.

Before he even opens his mouth, Alexander speaks.

"Don't even say it, Doctor."

The man sighs. "Alexander, she's tired."

Denial rises in Alexander. He whips his head back and forth, like a child in a tantrum.

"There's got to be something else. Something we haven't tried yet."

 _Eliza doesn't want this_ , that traitorous part of his mind reminds him. _She wants you to let her go._

Alexander Hamilton loves his wife. He loves his wife so much more than he loves himself. He would do anything for his wife. He would move mountains, empty oceans, indulge any request she could give.

She wants this.

He doesn't want to give it to her.

"It's not over," he whispers. "It can't be over."

She's awake. Dark eyes watch the doctor.

Her eyes are accepting. Peaceful.

He can see the pain through her body.

He knows her whole being hurts.

But her eyes are at peace.

He lowers his head to rest on her pillow, mindful of the ventilator that is keeping his wife's broken body alive.

"We were supposed to have forever."

 _/You are my_ wife. _We go through this together/_

He looks at her, really looks at her, for the first time in a long time. Her skin is yellowed and pale, too pale from its usual olive, and paper-thin. A scarf is wrapped round her head, her forehead is sweating. She is so skinny he fears he could break her.

She is sick. Really sick. And the treatment isn't working.

And yet when her eyes open he sees his Eliza, the one he married. The girl with the shining blue dress and the beautiful brown eyes that he fell for so instantly.

The girl who has been the one constant in his hurricane of a life.

She is the eye of the storm for him. The anchor. And without her…..

He leads the doctor out of the room, and the man heaves a sigh and robotically repeats their options.

He should tell her. It should be him, Doctor Washington tells him.

He doesn't want this.

She can't talk, he knows, through the oxygen mask, but they haven't needed actual words in a long time.

 _/She's ready/_

"Love," his voice breaks and he knows exactly how hard this will be.

"The doctor said…he said we have a choice. _You_ have a choice."

He takes a shuddering breath in, and feels her hand come to rest lightly on his.

Even now, as he is talking her through what may be the last decision she will make, she is comforting him.

"He said there is one more thing we can try. A clinical trial, I guess. It's had good luck with lung cancer so far. But….but it'll be hard. And if it doesn't work, there's…" he breaks off in a sob.

"There's nothing he can do after that."

Her hand lightly strokes his. His eyes rest gently on her.

"Or…" he can barely bring himself to say it. He still can barely think of a world without Eliza.

"Or he can switch to palliative care. He said."

Her expression doesn't change. Why would it, he thinks? She has known this was coming for a long time. Certainly faced it before he did.

 _/Alexander. I need you/_

"Eliza. I know you're tired. I know you're so tired. And this is your choice. But…."

This time a real sob breaks through, but she has only the strength to twine her fingers through his.

" _Please. I need you."_

He knows what she wants.

 **\- come what may, I will love you until my dying day-**

The soundtrack to his life is the steady beeps of the heart monitor and the sniffles of his children.

Eliza lies still. She hasn't woken in days. The tubes are gone. Only the IV remains, to keep her pain away.

He was supposed to do that. He failed.

Her favorite scarf is wrapped around her head, though her hair had started to grow back. It was the scarf the children had made for her.

It was quiet William's idea. He had bought a plain white scarf, and fabric markers. One day he had laid both out on the table and carefully drawn six sections on the scarf. One for each of them, he said. So mommy can feel beautiful.

 _/She has no problem with pain, doc. Seven kids and married to me/_

They had each taken their turn, the tears plentiful. Elizabeth's was full of bright colors, and the word "mommy" over and over, once James had taught her to write it. William had plopped all of his books down and chosen his favorite passages, writing each down in his best writing (it had taken hours and he had never relented). On John's, section, he had drawn a flower. Beautiful, intricate blue petals adorn the portion allocated to his toughest, least emotional son.

"Mom loves blue," he had choked out, and Alexander had wrapped him in a tight hug, his eleven-year-old son sobbing in his arms.

Alex Jr. had taken the least time. He had written only four words. The tears start fresh when he sees them. His oldest son, his mature, nearly grown sixteen-year-old son had written, "I love you Mommy," in plain black.

Angelica had drawn a picture. She hadn't let anyone else see. But Alex looks as they wrap it. Angelica sees, but seems okay with it. She smooths her hand over the fabric. It's a picture of Philip and Eliza. They are locked in an embrace, Eliza's hair long, both dressed in white. Healthy. Radiant.

Alex wonders if he will run out of tears.

Eliza had hardly taken it off since. She was so very sick when they gave it to her, but had demanded they put it on immediately, tears flowing as she looked at each contribution. Alex had obediently put it on her.

And then looked at his wife in what their children had made for her and felt those damn tears pool.

"You look beautiful," he'd whispered.

She had given each child a kiss. "My babies," she sighed. "My beautiful babies."

Alexander missed her voice already.

/ _And their time is running out/_

 **-breathe, just breathe -**

The doctors said it could be any time.

None of them have left her side.

They hug her, kiss her, hold her hand.

He knows she would have wanted them all here.

 _/He will not let his family break again/_

Others tell him that his children are _just children_ , _why would you let them see this?_

Because this is a part of it too, he realizes. They go through this together. And that includes this part, this final step.

He strokes her limp hand, breathes words of love into her skin, hopes with everything he has that she knows he's there.

And then the heart monitor begins to change pace.

The children don't even stir.

They know.

They've accepted it.

She's accepted it.

But he needs to feel her close to him, just one more time.

Just one more moment for the rest of his life.

The heart monitor slows, he can hear it, and he makes a decision in moment.

He brings the long forgotten wheelchair up to the bed, and lowers his arms to pick up his wife.

He lowers them both down to the chair and rests her fragile body in his lap.

She weighs next to nothing, and sags limply against him. He settles her and breathes her in.

With one hand on the wheel, he spins them slowly and sings without realizing it.

 **Dry away the tears**

 **Lay aside your fears**

 **No more pain, for my love**

 **I am here, now go to sleep**

The children gather at the foot of the wheelchair. Alex feels her sighing against him, her breath slow.

Was it actually possible to die inside?

 _His wife._

 **And when the angels come**

 **I know that they will treat you well**

 **That they will pull you through**

 **And lift you up from all that's held you down**

Her breath comes in small gasps.

He loves her so much.

 **There's a heaven up there**

 **And it waits just for you**

 **So close your eyes and dream**

 **And there will be a world you once knew**

Tears seem inconsequential now.

He feels like his heart is being carved out of his chest.

As if Eliza was a part of him, and his heart hurts as if that part is being physically torn away.

This is for her.

 _This is for her_.

"You save me a spot, okay?" he sobs.

"And tell Philip that daddy misses him. He better keep you company."

 **A world without the pain**

 **That has stuck with you for far too long**

 **A world that does contain a love like mine**

 **To watch you grow strong**

Her breath slows, but doesn't stop. He wonders why. Then realizes.

 _This is for her._

"It's okay," he ducks his head down to whisper in her ear.

"You've been so brave, so long. You go. We'll be okay."

 _/Let her fly_ /

Her breath slows further, until he can barely feel the exhalations. He hears James wail.

His lips to her ear, he keeps talking. Just like always.

"It's okay, I'm right here. We're all here, we're with you. You can go. You save a spot for me up there, okay? Don't be scared. It's a beautiful place. A place with no more doctors, or tests or tears or pain. No more cancer, no more chemo, you'll be free. Just close your eyes. Go to sleep, I'll be right here."

 **And when my time arrives**

 **Please wait and make a place for me**

 **For when I do arrive**

 **Your face should be the first face I see**

He hears the whine.

He feels the breath stop.

He sees the children wail.

But he only sings.

 **So dry away the tears**

 **Lay aside your fears**

 **No more pain, for my love**

 **It is time**

 **Now go to sleep**

He lays her on the bed, the children cuddle around her. He kisses her forehead.

He loves her.

His wife.

His wife.

She's free.

 **-I've never been this bare-**

 **Epilogue:**

"Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton is impossible to eulogize. I cannot….I cannot stand up here and give a eulogy for her, because the words are not there. There are not enough words to describe what my wife was to me."

The ceremony is on the beach.

Like where they got married again.

People wear jeans. Casual clothes. Dresses flap in the breeze.

His children clutch her favorite scarf, and each other.

"Eliza and I met when she was 22. She was this…beautiful, sophisticated girl. She loved horses and singing, and, for some reason, me. Eliza could have had anyone she wanted, but she chose me. And I'm afraid; sometimes I didn't honor the magnitude of that privilege as much as I should. She deserved so much more than me. And I know it's selfish but…I will always be thankful that I am the person she chose. She gave me 22 years, the best years of my life. Her legacy lives on in our children, even after she's gone. And that legacy….I can't think of a better one."

They aren't the best words he's ever said.

He doesn't have any more pretty words.

He has his children.

But he's alone.

He is the only one scheduled to eulogize her. And that's ridiculous, because he has no words.

Maybe he'll never have words again.

But he does have the small comfort that nothing can hurt worse than this.

Except when they ask if anyone else would like to say a few words about Eliza.

And, with reluctance, Thomas Jefferson stands.

Alexander doesn't fight.

He's lost all fight.

The fight has left him when they took everything he believed in, and put her in the ground.

So he doesn't protest when Jefferson stands.

"I don't know if any of you know me, but I professionally argue with that guy," Thomas grins, pointing to Alexander.

"And it may also surprise you to know that I knew Eliza too. In 2005, he was kicking my ass pretty good in elections. And since you all don't know me very well, I'll also set the record straight right now: I'm a bit of a bastard. So I sold a story to a tabloid about Alexander cheating with some random girl. Completely false, but I did it anyway."

Jefferson breaks away in a chuckle as Alexander sits tensely, shooting him a death glare that plainly read _at my wife's funeral, Jefferson? In front of my children?_

"Oh god, did I pay for that. Because, you see, I deeply underestimated Eliza, and the influence she had on those around me. In the next two months, my laundry services were cancelled, my car service kept mysteriously breaking down, my appointments would change around every single day so I never made it to a single meeting, and nobody wanted to associate with me. I went to the hospital one day and sat in the ER for ten hours before getting through _triage_. It got so bad that one day I showed up in tennis shorts and a polo shirt for a meeting with the secret service, two hours late."

He gives a barking laugh. "Needless to say, I never messed with the Hamiltons again."

Alex is almost sure he sees tears in Jefferson's eyes as he continues.

"Eight months ago, I got the flu. Sickest I've been in decades, and I still dragged my ass into work. Only to find, all my daily appointments had been rescheduled. On my desk was a bottle of Pepto Bismol, sleeping medication, a stash of Kleenex, a few magazines and a thermos of soup. On the soup a note had been attached. It said 'not taking care of yourself when you can barely move doesn't make you a hero, it makes you an idiot. E.S.H'. "

Thomas breaks off to heave a cough that sounded a lot like a sob into his hand.

"This woman, whose husband I had tortured for years, whose reputation I had dragged through the mud, had made me the best chicken soup I've had in…shit, in forever, and made sure I was taken care of and tended to. She rescheduled all my appointments and bought me medication and arranged for my ride home. All while taking care of six children and fighting a disease that was slowly taking over her body. I couldn't quite believe it."

This time, the tears in his eyes are unmistakable.

"You know, for years, people around me have attached different words to my name. Arrogant, smart, driven, but the ones that really stand out are ones like _strong_ and _tough_ and _brave._ I guess we all like to believe we are. Over the years those have certainly been ascribed to me."

Another cough/sob, and a frantic pinch of his nose. Jefferson closed his eyes tightly before continuing.

"But the truth is, I never was. This woman, though. If I had….if I have a tenth, a _fraction_ of the strength she showed every single day, then I count myself as a much better person. The thing is...you always say something like this is something you'd never wish on your worst enemy. Now I know for Hamilton, that worst enemy would be me, and he probably expects me to say him. But god, man. I was...I _am….so_ jealous of you."

"This sucks, yes. Actually, that's probably the mildest way to put it. This is the worst thing we could have thought of, but look what you got. You got 20 years with this amazing woman, seven great kids, and a life together. I would give anything for that. And I know that's cold comfort now and maybe always, but you were so lucky. Anyone who saw you two knew it."

An actual sob, and he didn't even try to hide it this time.

"Elizabeth Hamilton exists in all of us now. And we are all so, so lucky to have known her. Your wife, Hamilton….she changed all of us. We're different; we're better, because we were lucky enough to have known her. And if a piece of her exists in all of us, she's never gone."

 **It ends with sons**

 **It ends with wives**

 **It ends with knowing when the pavement bends**

 **We find our lives**

 **A/N:**

 **I'm just…..**

 **I…**

 **SO  
FUCKING**

 **SORRY.**

 **Believe me I hate me for this.**

 **This fic has been amazing to write. And fuck, look how far I got in it!**

 **YELL AT ME I DESERVE THIS.**


	15. come what may

**Y'all didn't think I'd leave you like that?**

 **Well, I guess I can see why you did.**

 **But I am back with what you might call an alternate ending of sorts.**

 **I'm calling it an apology for the MANY people that have been requesting a slightly less angsty ending and the MANY people yelling at me for making them cry.**

 **Please know that fluff is not my strong suit, and this chapter was written fairly quickly, so please forgive any mistakes.**

 **And let's do the Sadie-finished-a-fic celebratory dance!**

 **Also, to Smiley101, thank you so much for skipping the tactic of murder and going straight to involving the law. Sorry I wasn't home at 3, I had yoga. Left a note on the door for the boys in blue.**

 **He makes sense of all of my chaos**

 **In ways I can never explain**

 **He turns all of my sadness into a smile**

 **He's helping me live life again**

 **It's the light in the eyes of my children**

 **It's the sound of their laughter once more**

 **It's a glimpse of a life I dared only to dream,**

 **And a dream only life could restore**

"Love," his voice breaks and he knows exactly how hard this will be.

"The doctor said…he said we have a choice. _You_ have a choice."

He takes a shuddering breath in, and feels her hand come to rest lightly on his.

Even now, as he is talking her through what may be the last decision she will make, she is comforting him.

"He said there is one more thing we can try. A clinical trial, I guess. It's had good luck with lung cancer so far. But….but it'll be hard. And if it doesn't work, there's…" he breaks off in a sob.

"There's nothing he can do after that."

Her hand lightly strokes his. His eyes rest gently on her.

"Or…" he can barely bring himself to say it. He still can barely think of a world without Eliza.

"Or he can switch to palliative care. He said."

He supposes he has a bar for chemo now.

He's sort of seen it all.

But this stuff…Eliza's skin breaks out in raw sores, her body drops down to below 100 pounds, she has to be fed intravenously because the mouth sores make it impossible for her to eat.

Sometimes when she's awake, she screams in pain.

He sits by her bed, holds her hand and apologizes over and over.

 _She didn't want this. You made her do this._

He knows, he _knows_.

 _She's in pain because of you._

He's a selfish bastard but he's a selfish bastard who needs his wife.

Needs her like he's never needed anything, is only able to function because he has her.

He can't let her go.

On the days where she is not in so much pain, he takes her frail body into his lap and rocks her back and forth.

These are the moments he needs.

These are the only moments worth living for, now.

 **\- sometimes I feel like I've never been nothing but tired -**

He doesn't allow the children to the hospital.

What Alex Jr. saw that day so long ago still haunts him.

He still wakes up shouting at an invisible enemy to get away from his mom.

He still clings to her when he's allowed to see her, which is only during the brief periods they let her go home to visit her children, and only because she is so drugged she barely registers his presence.

He doesn't care.

He and the other boys curl up in their mother's lap like small children, rub their mother's back, and whisper to her in soft voices.

"Mama, you're home."

"We missed you."

"Can we get something for you?"

"Mama, look what I made for you."

It warms and breaks Alex's heart at the same time.

He tells himself he is doing the right thing.

His children need their mother, even if she's not the mother they remember.

 **-what came from the heart can never be wrong-**

He hates himself.

(What else is new?)

He hates himself for putting her through this.

She's being tortured, she's in pain, and she's stretched to the very limits of what her broken body can take.

On a particularly bad day, Eliza grabs his shirt and pulls him down to her level.

"Please, Alexander," she sobs. "Please let me die. I can't live like this anymore, _please_."

He's a selfish bastard who needs his wife.

And he would go through this instead, would take this from her without a moment's hesitation. Sometimes he prays for it to be him instead.

But god never listened to him, never in his life.

So for now, he can only grab her hand and whisper the same thing over and over.

 _I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry. I love you._

 **\- tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, may be too late -**

There is chemo.

There is radiation.

There is surgery.

Somehow the house keeps running. People show up. Cooks and drivers and maids that he doesn't remember hiring.

(he'll later find out he didn't)

- **I will learn to survive -**

Angelica stays in the treatment center.

He can't deal with her illness too.

He's pretty sure that makes him a terrible father, but he has no more left to give.

(as it turns out, her doctors don't think she'll be stable enough to be released anytime soon)

And the hellish cycle that has been life for the past year continues.

He comes home when he can.

(he still sees Eliza when he sleeps. She is reaching for him. Calling out for him. Through hundreds of calls to the hospital, he is assured that she is sedated and has not woken, but he can't shake the feeling.)

She needs him.

But his children need him too.

And he promised her he would take care of them.

And then one day, when he goes to see her, she is sitting up.

On her own.

And she doesn't cough the whole visit.

He knows how small it seems.

But that lights something inside of him, something he hasn't felt in a long time.

 _Hope_.

And it's one visit and it's such a small thing and maybe it's silly to hope (certainly most of his internal monologue would say so) but he so wants that light at the end of the tunnel.

(wants that light not to be an oncoming train).

 **\- I won't cry for yesterday, there's an ordinary world -**

His children are the bright spots in the darkness.

The principal calls him twice more to the school, both times for his boys fighting.

He tells her not to call again.

If they were defending their family, he will not punish them.

Elizabeth and William fall asleep with him every night.

Once, a shadowy figure he knows was James joins them, but the fourteen year old refuses to talk about it the next day.

They beg to see their mother more.

He refuses.

Until one day he finds John and William sneaking into the backseat of his car as he heads to the hospital, when they think he's not looking.

 **\- come find your way, come lay your wreath at the altar of change -**

And in the hurricane, there is light.

Light in the form of a doctor who brings Eliza's latest scans in.

A specialist, Alex knew. He'd seen the way the nurses looked at him with reverence.

The man introduces himself as Doctor Washington, no not that Dr. Washington of the Washington Hospital.

That was his father.

He is a cancer specialist.

He is retired.

And someone had put in a call, asked for a favor, so he had taken Eliza's case, and enrolled her in the trial.

Alexander Google's him and is amazed. He is a pioneer in cancer research, so it seems. He takes cases nobody else will touch, the hopeless cases, and he cures.

That small light of hope rises in him again, even before he sees the man's face.

His face carries an expression he hasn't seen in what feels like decades.

He is smiling.

His face carries hope.

Hope.

Alex had forgotten such an emotion existed, but it does.

Because the tumors are shrinking.

Because her blood counts are up.

Because the treatment is fucking _working._

Eliza sits up on her own two days in a row.

She drinks a cup of water.

She manages a few bites of food.

The sores begin to heal.

And then one day, one glorious, miraculous day, he comes in and she is standing.

She is fucking _standing_.

He is not even sure what to feel.

Happy, grateful, overjoyed, they seem so pitiful compared to what he's feeling.

And then his better angel wobbles with a few shaky steps over to him and he catches her in his arms and buries his face in her neck and sobs.

 **\- I'll always be there, as frightened as you -**

Eliza is getting better.

She's actually getting better.

He lets the children visit.

They mob her with hugs, and the entire Hamilton family piles together on one bed.

It gives a groan, just like the gurney before her first surgery, what feels like years ago.

Two months later, they say goodbye to the hospital.

The nurses smile, hug them with tears in their eyes, tell them never to come back here.

The doctor smiles when they thank him and tells them no thanks are necessary, that it was a privilege. He catches Alexander's arm as he leaves and speaks to him in a conspirational whisper. Alexander wants to leave here, really wants to leave, but the man has done so much for them.

"This case was worth it. Tell Thomas I was glad to help."

Well, _that_ stops him.

"Who?"

Surely there were many Thomas' in the world. Surely it couldn't be…

"Senator Jefferson. He called me, asked me for a favor. Said he had a family who needed help, and they deserved a break."

 **\- how long will I love you? As long as stars are above you -**

 _Hope_.

Alex discovered it had a look.

It was the blush on his wife's cheeks, absent for so long. It was her smile as she gazed at their children.

It was the fine dark strands that grew long again, curling at the end, soft to the touch as Alex ran his hand through them.

It had a sound.

Eliza's laugh, his children's laugh, the gentle gasps she would make when he kissed that spot on her neck.

It had a color.

Several actually. Hope was bright and soft and the same time, vivid shades of green as his youngest chased her brothers around the lawn they were "watering", soft white like the snow his youngest drags him out to make snow angels in.

It had a taste.

Sweet, gentle. Like the taste left in his mouth when his Eliza was baking bread and laid her flour-soaked hands to his cheek and pressed her lips firmly to his.

And it had a feel.

The feel of his youngest, asleep against his chest. The feel of the tickling sensation that was Eliza's long strands of raven hair on his chin.

The feel of a baby's kick against taut skin.

The tears on his cheeks as he held his wife's hand, before new life was brought into the world.

And the fine hair dusting the skull of their newest child.

Philip.

Little Phil.

 _Hope_.

How lucky we are to be alive right now.

- **that's what living is for -**

 **This whole world is spinning crazy  
And I can't quite keep up  
It's the one thing around here  
That we don't have quite enough of  
So I just wanna look a little more like love**


End file.
